Science & Tech · Science & Environment · 5 hrs ago
Digitized Congo Basin Records Reveal Warming and More Extreme Weather
Scientists have digitized thousands of handwritten weather records from archives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Belgium.
The records cover 1908 to 2023 and contain more than a million weather observations.
The Congo Basin has had too little accessible climate data for scientists to track long-term changes in extreme heat and rainfall.
The newly digitized records show that from 1961 to 1990, average daily temperature rose by about 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit, while the number of hot days per year nearly doubled.
The researchers also found more extreme heat and heavy rainfall as the region warmed.
Together with other recovered records, the data form one of the largest climate datasets for the Congo Basin and could help improve future climate projections.
Scientists say more weather data could also help improve warnings about extreme weather and clarify how climate change affects events.
Scientists digitized thousands of handwritten weather records to reveal long-term warming and more extreme weather in the Congo Basin.
The records span 1908 to 2023 and were recovered from archives in Belgium and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Between 1961 and 1990, average daily temperature in the basin rose by about 0.9 degrees F, and the average number of hot days per year nearly doubled.
The findings were published in Earth System Dynamics.
Scientists say the expanded dataset could improve projections of future climate change in a region where weather data has been scarce.
- Who
- Scientists digitized and analyzed the records. Researchers involved included Derrick Muheki and Wim Thiery of Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
- What
- The records revealed warming, more extreme heat and more heavy rainfall in the Congo Basin.
- When
- The records span 1908 to 2023. The reported temperature and hot-day changes cover 1961 to 1990.
- Where
- The Congo Basin, using records recovered from archives in Belgium and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- Why
- The work aimed to address a lack of readily available long-term climate data for the region.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
Seeing how fragile these paper archives were as I was visiting [the archive in the Democratic Republic of the Congo] made me realize how urgent this data rescue work is
Our work further highlights the urgent need for more data rescue projects, especially in data-sparse regions, to close knowledge gaps on climate trends
The handwritten weather records recovered from archives in Belgium and the Democratic Republic of the Congo cover this period.
Scientists found that average daily temperature in the Congo Basin rose by about 0.9 degrees F and the average number of hot days per year nearly doubled.
Yale e360 published an account of the digitized records and the findings.
- Records covered
- 1908–2023
- Pages scanned
- More than 9,000
- Observations
- More than 1 million
- Average daily temperature rise
- About 0.9 degrees F, 1961–1990
- Hot days
- Average number per year nearly doubled, 1961–1990
- Research journal
- Earth System Dynamics
Sources
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