Toward integrated historical climate research: the example of Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth

Abstract

Climate change has become a key environmental narrative of the 21st century. However, emphasis on the science of climate change has overshadowed studies focusing on human interpretations of climate history, of adaptation and resilience, and of explorations of the institutions and cultural coping strategies that may have helped people adapt to climate changes in the past. Moreover, although the idea of climate change has been subject to considerable scrutiny by the physical sciences, recent climate scholarship has highlighted the need for a re-examination of the cultural and spatial dimensions of climate, with contributions from the humanities and social sciences. Establishing a multidisciplinary dialogue and approach to climate research past, present, and future has arguably never been more important. This article outlines developments in historical climatology research and considers examples of integrated multidisciplinary approaches to climate, climatic variability, and climate change research, conducted across the physical sciences, social sciences, humanities, and the arts. We highlight the international Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth (ACRE) initiative as one example of such an integrated approach. Initially, ACRE began as a response from climate science to the needs of the agricultural sector in Queensland, Australia for a longer, more spatially, and temporally-complete database of the weather. ACRE has now evolved to embrace an international group of researchers working together across

Dealing with the deluge of historical weather data: the example of the TEMPEST database

“…More recently, the collection and digitisation of historic pressure data from private diaries as well as from ships logbooks, has been the focus of a number of Met Office projects through the Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth (ACRE) initiative (Allan et al . ).…”

A roadmap to climate data rescue services

“…A new focus for the climate data rescue community has seen the linking together of historical climatologists, historians and geographers with impact researchers (e.g. Dupigny‐Giroux and Mock, , Allan et al ., a; b; ; Williamson et al, ; Klein et al, ; Williamson et al, ). At the centre of this activity is the previously mentioned international ACRE initiative (Figure ).…”

“…Although it is a global, continuous effort, it has been argued that climate data rescue is best performed by many small, individual projects (see Brunet and Jones, ) or by a mix of regional foci under a broad international umbrella (Allan et al ., a; b; ). Each of these projects or foci establish their own links to archives (e.g.…”

“…At the same time, there needs to be close collaboration between climate data rescue groups, with networks shared where possible, including know‐how on citizen science approaches, imaged library holdings and databases in humanities. What the ACRE initiative (Allan et al ., a; b; ) has demonstrated is that an international umbrella can provide overarching linkages between various projects, programmes, institutions and organizations operating on various spatial scales—local, regional and global. It thus builds a coherent community, effectively “pooling” resources, personnel and funds from the various regional climate data rescue foci under it (e.g.…”

Meteorological observations for Eversleigh Station, near Armidale, New South Wales, Australia: 1877–1922

“…Long‐term instrumental meteorological data are crucial for the understanding of natural climate variability and human‐induced climate change (Brunet and Jones, ). Extended datasets assist in the identification of multi‐decadal fluctuations and trends, identify past extreme weather and climate events, improve the development of atmospheric climate models, and assist in the validation and calibration of natural climate proxies that can extend our understanding of the earth's climate back hundreds of years (Gergis and Ashcroft, ; Allan et al ., ; Ashcroft et al ., ).…”