Join us on Wednesday 30 August at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference for our Geo sponsored session ‘Digital Data: Opening up the Weather Archive’ (Education Centre, session 3, 14.40-16.20), convened by Georgina Endfield (The University of Liverpool), Lucy Veale (The University of Liverpool), and Sarah Davies (Aberystwyth University).
This session brings together researchers working on weather and climate history, existing or potential end users of research databases, and custodians of manuscript weather data, to critically evaluate the construction, management, application, and implications of digital weather data. Emphasis will be placed on thinking about the future of these tools and how we can improve connections between them, both technical and geographical.
The session will also include a live demonstration of the TEMPEST database (Tracking Extremes of Meteorological Phenomena in Extent across Space and Time). TEMPEST’s c.20,000 records are drawn from primary research into original documentary sources held in archives around the UK and offer personalised and geo-referenced insights into the relationship between society and extreme weather in the UK spanning a period of over 400 years.
Audience members are encouraged to send in live queries relating to historical extreme weather events via twitter (using the conference hashtag, #RGSIBG17); the discussion will also be of interest to researchers working on databases of other kinds.
Read the associated data paper: Dealing with the Deluge of Historical Weather Data: The example of the TEMPEST (Tracking Extremes of Meteorological Phenomena Experienced in Space and Time) Database.
Veale L., Endfield G., Davies S., Macdonald N., Naylor S., Royer M.-J., Bowen J., Tyler-Jones R., and Jones C. Dealing with the deluge of historical weather data: the example of the TEMPEST database. Geo: Geography and Environment. 2017, 4 (2), e00039
Visit the associated display in the Ambulatory: A Deluge of Documentary Weather Data, curated by Lucy Veale, Georgina Endfield and Sarah Davies.
This display explores extreme weather events in the UK, drawing on primary archival materials used in the AHRC funded project ‘Spaces and Experience and Horizons of Expectation: The Implications of Extreme Weather, Past, Present and Future’. It also features primary archival materials from the RGS-IBG archives, including resources relating to the meteorological investigations of the Terra Nova expedition 1910-13, led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott.
The database and project have an audience beyond academia. The project-team has worked with the RGS-IBG Schools team to produce a range of resources for teachers and students.
Watch the online lecture: Extreme Weather – The history of human-environmental interactions and our climatic past Georgina Endfield explores the weather histories of unusual and extreme weather events, weather memories, and human responses linked to these events in an RGS-IBG School Member Lecture. (Free to access for a limited time).
Listen to Georgina Endfield on the RGS-IBG ‘Ask the Expert’ Podcast Series
In this podcast Laura Price (RGS-IBG) spoke to Georgina about the TEMPEST. The podcast explores how and why extreme weather events have been inscribed into our cultural fabric. (Free to access).
Primary teacher guide *coming soon*
The guide aims to promote the use of the Tempest weather archive in schools, and pupil’s understanding of historical weather and climate extremes more broadly.
Animation *coming soon*
The animation, for KS4 students, introduces the historical diversity of weather experiences in the UK. Using examples from the RGS-IBG archives, it explores the environmental and cultural implications of the events.
Interested in finding out more about extreme weather geographies? Take a look at Georgina Endfield and Lucy Veale’s Discovering Britain trail, the Great Dun Fell walk. It explores the Helm wind (Britain’s only named wind), the landscape of the North Pennines, and the work of Gordon Manley, a geographer who pioneered the collection of meteorological data.
