What is the Data Rescue process?

In many countries, data are not organized but confined to boxes in rooms, forgotten. Some are relegated to open shelves subjected to moisture, dust, heat and neglect. When the space is needed for other activities, the data are most often discarded.

Data Rescue teams organize these data by observation site and place the data in chronological order in preparation for digital photography. Each sheet containing weather observations is oriented on the camera stand so that all the data as well as the station name and location will be visible to the camera.

The camera is focused and the digital photograph taken. When the camera memory is full, the images are downloaded into the computer. A CD-ROM is made for the office where the data originated. A second CD-ROM is sent to the organization responsible for digitizing the observations.

At the digitization center, through a series of steps, the data are displayed on a computer screen and a data entry expert keys the data residing on the digital photograph into the computer. The data are stored as CDF (comma delimited format) illustrated below.

CDMP28KE,KE0028,0002.jpg,63671,01,07,1985,1,11,1,1,0,170, 15,166, 13,169, 19,169, 28,169, 10,175, 15,178, 15,183, 21,185, 30,190, 28,191, 30,189, 26,184, 31,175, 27,180, 23,180, 14,180, 13,169, 17,167, 16,180, 02, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

CDMP28KE,KE0028,0003.jpg,63671,01,08,1985,1,11,1,1,0,180, 10,158, 15,167, 35,162, 44,176, 30,207, 07,246, 07,162, 06,190, 14,172, 11, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Once the data are stored as a CDF, they can be displayed in a variety of ways such as the table below.

Station: Embu, Kenya #63720
00o 30'S 37o27'E elev. 1493 ft
01/02/1979 05Z
PIBAL Data (Upper level winds)

Additionally, since the data are stored as digital files on either the central NOAA database or on CD-ROMs, computer programs of all types can use those data as input producing an infinite variety of useful information heretofore unavailable to the researchers or operational meteorologists, climatologists and engineers.