Hourly weather observations from the Scottish Highlands (1883–1904) rescued by volunteer citizen scientists

Hawkins, E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9477-3677, Burt, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5125-6546, Brohan, P., Lockwood, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7397-2172, Richardson, H., Roy, M. and Thomas, S. (2019) Hourly weather observations from the Scottish Highlands (1883–1904) rescued by volunteer citizen scientists. Geoscience Data Journal, 6 (2). pp. 160-173. ISSN 2049-6060 doi: 10.1002/gdj3.79

Abstract/Summary

Weather observations taken every hour during the years 1883–1904 on the summit of Ben Nevis (1345 m above sea level) and in the town of Fort William in the Scottish Highlands have been transcribed from the original publications into digital form. More than 3,500 citizen scientist volunteers completed the digitization in less than 3 months using the WeatherRescue.org website. Over 1.5 million observations of atmospheric pressure, wet‐ and dry‐bulb temperatures, precipitation and wind speed were recovered. These data have been quality controlled and are now made openly available, including hourly values of relative humidity derived from the digitized dry‐ and wet‐bulb temperatures using modern hygrometric algorithms. These observations are one of the most detailed weather data collections available for anywhere in the UK in the Victorian era. In addition, 374 observations of aurora borealis seen by the meteorologists from the summit of Ben Nevis have been catalogued and this has improved the auroral record for studies of space weather.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/86129
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > NCAS Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	Wiley
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