ALBERT

Description: Important data from the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD) collection have been recently rescued from unstable fiche media and scanned to digital images by the EU funded Copernicus Climate Change Service and the Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) of Belgium. The team at the C3S2-311 Lot 1 Collection and Processing of In Situ Observations service led by the Irish Climate Analysis and Research UnitS (ICARUS) at Maynooth University, Ireland enrolled the help of 2nd year university undergraduate students to transcribe quickly and effectively some of these important ACMAD meteorological surface observations. New and unique datasets for Macenta, Guinea (1947-1953) and Andapa, Madagascar (1949-1957) were digitised with each station consisting of sub-daily observations for: cloud, temperature, humidity, evaporation, pressure and wind as well as daily observations for: evaporation, precipitation and temperature. The newly digitised Sub-Saharan African data will increase the temporal and spatial coverage of data in this important data-sparse region where climate change impact studies are crucial., Students gained new skills and a deep appreciation of historical climatology while helping the global scientific community unearth new insights into past sub-Saharan African climate. The Climate Data Rescue Africa project (CliDaR-Africa project) model has the potential for a broader roll-out to other educational contexts and there is certainly no shortage of data to be rescued with millions of images remaining untouched. Therefore, this paper provides details of the project, and all supporting information such as project guidelines and templates to enable other organisations to instigate similar programs in future.