As I write this in 2025, IEDRO completed two decades of data rescue. In that time its commitment to mitigating the global damages from extreme weather has remained unchanged. IEDRO has worked with dozens of organizations to save millions of historical weather records from being lost forever, extending our digital vision of some locations back to the nineteenth century.
Funding agencies have committed over a million dollars to IEDRO-supported projects across four continents, greatly expanding our understanding of past natural disasters and improving our ability to forecast what is yet to come.
While concerns over emission-driven changes to our climate started to build in the 1950’s, those predictions are now becoming a visible and painful reality across the planet. Record temperatures, prolonged droughts, and rising sea levels are joined by more intense rainfall, flooding, and extreme hurricanes. These are leading to more death and destruction.
While IEDRO’s original mission has remained the same, its role has changed. At its founding in 2005, IEDRO worked in concert with NOAA’s Climate Data Modernization Program (CDMP), finding and imaging records at risk of loss and forwarding them to CDMP’s contractors for manual entry.
When funding for CDMP ended in 2013, IEDRO worked with data owners and funding sources to fill the gap, drawing on local agency staff, university students, and volunteers to meet the challenge. Thankfully, NOAA remained a valuable partner, especially by storing and sharing the resulting historical images and digital data from IEDRO’s various projects.
As the owners of most historical weather data, national hydrometeorological organizations across the world have also faced changes. While recent data is often “born digital,” historical data is found on handwritten paper forms, strip charts, microfiche, and magnetic tapes. Agencies are struggling to keep up with changing telecommunications needs, climate data management systems, and regional and international expectations for data sharing.
Rescue operations like IEDRO must keep pace with these and other changes that can affect its operations. US and international funding is certainly one such area but so too is technology. Digitization and data quality are predominant areas where technology offers both challenges and promise.
To attract the funds and skilled volunteers it will need to address these challenges, IEDRO needed a digital facelift. Leaner and thoroughly updated, IEDRO’s new website is designed for today’s mobile and digitally savvy users. We hope new visitors find it easy to use, informative, and engaging. We have big dreams for its future. Combined with future social media expansions, we envision the new website will be the working hub for IEDRO’s diverse and globally dispersed volunteers.
While we’re proud of our work to date, we know that’s not good enough. IEDRO’s successes are rooted in the contributions of its volunteers and supporters. Sure, funding sources are critical but so too are partnerships with rescue organizations and data owners, and the time and energy provided by our committed volunteers. That can include you!