Earth Systems Science Seminar

Research profile seminar

Speaker: Erik Engström, SMHI, Sweden.

Abstract:
The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) have preformed systematic measurements of meteorological, hydrological and oceanographic parameters since around 1860.
Some measurements in Lund, Stockholm and Uppsala started as early as in the 16th century. This is a rich treasure to study the long time change of the climate in Sweden. But these type of
measurements are often affected by various errors such as change of instrumentation, observer or location. To at least partially correct for these errors the data can be homogenized.

SMHI was one of the pioneers in this field when Hans Alexandersson and Anders Moberg published the SNHT method in 1996. For some years the activity of the homogenization work
at SMHI decreased, to be taken up again after 2010. Now Erik Engström and Thomas Carlund are working to homogenize Swedish daily and monthly temperature and precipitation data
using methods as Homer, Splidhom and Climatol. Much work is done in digitalization of historical data and meta data and a new database is facilitating the quality control.