Abstract In situ data are an essential need in the analyses of past and current climate change. All over the world, different data rescue activities try to extend existing time series and to retrieve data in spatial and temporal data sparse regions. Also in Europe, part of the historic data is still only available in paper archives, without any digital access to these sources. The EUMETNET Data Rescue activity was started in order to investigate the potential for additional long‐term stations, to monitor the progress of data rescue in European countries and to support participants with know‐how exchange and international connections to facilitate data exchange. The activity raised the awareness of the need for data rescue and ongoing activities. This paper will provide information on the data rescue activities of 4 EUMETNET countries focusing on different aspects and in different states of the data rescue process. While Austria, Croatia and Slovenia are connected by a partly common history which is also displayed in the history of their meteorological network, Catalonia has a different historical background. Nevertheless, the problems data rescue is confronted with are similar for all activities. Therefore, the selected countries will provide a good overview of the problems and solutions discussed during the EUMETNET meetings. This paper wants to offer insight into different strategies for data rescue as well as into ongoing activities. Moreover, the importance of cooperation in regard to data rescue is underlined and examples of possible partnerships are provided.

Three homogenization methods (ACMANT, MASH and HOMOP) have been evaluated for their efficiency in homogenizing daily relative humidity data. A homogeneous surrogate data set based on Austrian stations was created and perturbed to simulate inhomogeneous, realistic time series (“validation data sets”). Two validation data sets (“simple” and “complex”) were created. In both data sets the magnitude of the breaks depends on the time of year and the measured values. They differ in the number of missing values and especially on whether the break signal was perturbed by white noise. In the latter case, the noise also changed to take into account changes in random measurements errors and other physical factors. The evaluation showed high agreement in statistical characteristics between the real data and the surrogate data set. The homogenization methods were compared in their ability both to detect breaks and to reproduce the homogeneous surrogate data set. For the evaluation of the final data set the distribution, trends and root‐mean‐square error (RMSE) were analysed. The percentage of improved time series depends on the evaluation parameter considered. Less stations were improved when using the “complex” validation data set. Because of the large number of breaks and the small signal‐to‐noise ratio, an improvement of the data by homogenization was non‐ideal for all methods used, with each having its advantages and disadvantages. The quality of the ACMANT and HOMOP methods is comparable, with ACMANT solving less stations but declaring less stations falsely as homogeneous. To get an impression of the influence on real data, ACMANT was applied to homogenize daily Austrian time series of relative humidity. While the quality of data from some stations can be improved through the homogenization, this is not the case for all time series. A final evaluation of homogenized time series should be performed to ensure their quality before further use.

Along with the increasing world population and the technological advancement during the last centuries both energy consumption and the demand for land have increased simultaneously. Climate change at its estimated pace poses serious challenges for society, policy, and the economy. In order to develop suitable strategies for adaptation, fundamental knowledge about the climate in the past, present, and potentially in the future is required on a global and a regional scale. Thus, a scientific assessment of observed and projected changes of climate variables and indices is an inevitable precondition for appropriate adaptation and mitigation measures. Because the terms “weather” and “climate” are often misunderstood, a few general definitions have to be explained first. While “weather” means the state of the atmosphere in a certain moment, hour, day, or week, “climate” is defined as the statistical description of weather, including averages and variability as well as the return intervals of extremes over a period of at least 30 years [defined by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO)] (WMO 2011). The most relevant climate parameters characterising this period are surface variablesair temperature, precipitation, radiation, humidity, cloud cover and wind. Closely related to this definition

To explore past climates and to analyze variability and change, historical climatologists make use of instrumental measurements that pre-date our modern, standardized equipment and measurement practices. But are long-term instrumental series always reliable? And when can we trust the displayed trends? This chapter introduces methods for the homogenization of early instrumental data, an essential procedure to detect non-climatological breaks or trends in a series and remove them as best as possible.

As part of the COST Action HOME a dataset has been generated that will serve as a benchmark for homogenisation algorithms. Members of the Action and third parties have been invited and are still welcome to homogenise this dataset. The results of this exercise was analysed to obtain recommendations for a standard homogenisation procedure and are described in Venema et al. (Climate of the Past, 2012). Chapter two discusses the generation of this benchmark dataset, the climate variables considered, which types of data are in the benchmark dataset, how they have been produced, the ways to introduce artificial inhomogeneities, and the additional specifications such as length, missing data and trends. This chapter is an updated version of a report (Venema et al., 2009), which was available to the participants. A draft for the properties of the benchmark was developed at a Working Group meeting and was approved by the Management Committee of the Cost Action. The homogenized data that was returned by the participant is described in Chapter 3. In total 25 contributions have been returned before the deadline at which the truth was revealed. Multiple late contributions, submitted after the deadline, are also described. The descriptions of the contributions were written by the respective participants.

Draft guidance on the homogenisation of climate station data of the World Meteorological Organisation.

Although the European Alps are one of the most investigated regions worldwide, maps depicting climate change by means of climate classification are still not-existent. To contribute to this topic, a time series of very high resolution (30 arc-seconds) maps of the well-known Koppen-Geiger climate classification is presented. The maps cover the greater Alpine region located within the geographical domain of 4 to 19 degrees longitude and 43 to 49 degrees latitude. Gridded monthly data were selected to compile climate maps within this region. Observations for the period 1800-2010 were taken from the historical instrumental climatological surface time series of the greater Alpine region, HISTALP. Projected climate data for the period 2011-2100 were taken, as an example, from the Rossby Centre regional atmospheric model RCA4. Temperature fields were spatially disaggregated by applying the observed seasonal cycle of the environmental lapse rate. The main results of this study are, therefore, 366 observed and predicted (two scenarios) very high resolution Koppen-Geiger climate maps of the greater Alpine region covering the period 1800-2100. Digital data, as well as animated maps, showing the shift of the climate zones are provided on the following website http://koeppen-geiger.vu-wien.ac.at. Furthermore, the relationship between the Koppen-Geiger climate classification and the altitudinal belts of the Alps is demonstrated by calculating the boundaries of the climate zones, i.e. the deciduous forest line, the mixed forest line, the forest and tree line (timber line) and the snow line. The mean altitude of the potential timber line in the greater Alpine region, for example, was calculated to be 1730m by the end of the 19th century, 1880m by the end of the 20th century and to lie between 2120 and 2820 m by the end of the 21st century. The latter altitudes were projected for the greenhouse gas scenarios RCP 2.6 (best case) and RCP 8.5 (worst case). The altitude of the timber line (and the other boundaries of the altitudinal belts) is generally higher in the Western Alps, showing a clear west-east slope.

Hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) recipients are immunocompromised and thus predisposed to infections. We set out to determine the deficiency of which immune cell subset(s) may predispose to postengraftment infections. We determined day 28, 56, 84, and 180 blood counts of multiple immune cell subsets in 219 allogeneic transplant recipients conditioned with busulfan, fludarabine, and Thymoglobulin. Deficiency of a subset was considered to be associated with infections if the low subset count was significantly associated with subsequent high infection rate per multivariate analysis in both discovery and validation cohorts. Low counts of monocytes (total and inflammatory) and basophils, and low IgA levels were associated with viral infections. Low plasmacytoid dendritic cell (PDC) counts were associated with bacterial infections. Low inflammatory monocyte counts were associated with fungal infections. Low counts of total and naive B cells, total and CD56high natural killer (NK) cells, total and inflammatory monocytes, myeloid dendritic cells (MDCs), PDCs, basophils and eosinophils, and low levels of IgA were associated with any infections (due to any pathogen or presumed). In conclusion, deficiencies of B cells, NK cells, monocytes, MDCs, PDCs, basophils, eosinophils, and/or IgA plasma cells appear to predispose to postengraftment infections.

n this work we introduce the rationale behind the ongoing compilation of a parallel measurements database, under the umbrella of the International Surface Temperatures Initiative (ISTI) and with the support of the World Meteorological Organization. We intend this database to become instrumental for a better understanding of inhomogeneities affecting the evaluation of long term changes in daily climate data. Long instrumental climate records are usually affected by non-climatic changes, due to, e.g., relocations and changes in instrumentation, instrument height or data collection and manipulation procedures. These so-called inhomogeneities distort the climate signal and can hamper the assessment of trends and variability. Thus to study climatic changes we need to accurately distinguish non-climatic and climatic signals.

Annually resolved and absolutely dated tree-ring chronologies are the most important proxy archives to reconstruct climate variability over centuries to millennia. However, the suitability of tree- ...

The Carpathians are the longest mountain range in Europe and a geographic barrier between Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans. To investigate the climate of the area, the CARPATCLIM project members collected, quality-checked, homogenized, harmonized, and interpolated daily data for 16 meteorological variables and many derived indicators related to the period 1961-2010. The principal outcome of the project is the Climate Atlas of the Carpathian Region, hosted on a dedicated website () and made of high-resolution daily grids (0.1 degrees x 0.1 degrees) of all variables and indicators at different time steps. In this article, we analyze the spatial and temporal variability of 10 variables: minimum, mean, and maximum temperature, daily temperature range, precipitation, cloud cover, relative sunshine duration, relative humidity, surface air pressure, and wind speed at 2 m. For each variable, we present the gridded climatologies for the period 1961-2010 and discuss the linear trends both on an annual and seasonal basis. Temperature was found to increase in every season, in particular in the last three decades, confirming the trends occurring in Europe; wind speed decreased in every season; cloud cover and relative humidity decreased in spring, summer, and winter, and increased in autumn, while relative sunshine duration behaved in the opposite way; precipitation and surface air pressure showed no significant trend, though they increased slightly on an annual basis. We also discuss the correlation between the variables and we highlight that in the Carpathian Region positive and negative sunshine duration anomalies are highly correlated to the corresponding temperature anomalies during the global dimming (1960s and 1970s) and brightening (1990s and 2000s) periods.

The eruption of Mount Tambora (Indonesia) in April 1815 is the largest documented volcanic eruption in history. It is associated with a large global cooling during the following year, felt particularly in parts of Europe and North America, where the year 1816 became known as the "year without a summer". This paper describes an effort made to collect surface meteorological observations from the early instrumental period, with a focus on the years of and immediately following the eruption (1815–1817). Although the collection aimed in particular at pressure observations, correspondent temperature observations were also recovered. Some of the series had already been described in the literature, but a large part of the data, recently digitised from original weather diaries and contemporary magazines and newspapers, is presented here for the first time. The collection puts together more than 50 sub-daily series from land observatories in Europe and North America and from ships in the tropics. The pressure observations have been corrected for temperature and gravity and reduced to mean sea level. Moreover, an additional statistical correction was applied to take into account common error sources in mercury barometers. To assess the reliability of the corrected data set, the variance in the pressure observations is compared with modern climatologies, and single observations are used for synoptic analyses of three case studies in Europe. All raw observations will be made available to the scientific community in the International Surface Pressure Databank.

Der Österreichische Sachstandsbericht Klimawandel 2014 (AAR14) stellt einen IPCC-ähnlichen Bericht dar, bestehend aus drei Bänden, für den bestehendes Wissen zum Klimawandel in Österreich, zu dessen Auswirkungen und den Erfordernissen und Möglichkeiten der Minderung und Anpassung zusammengefasst wird. Der Bericht verfolgt das Ziel, den wissenschaftlichen Kenntnisstand für Österreich kohärent und vollständig darzulegen und dies in Form von politikrelevanten Analysen an die Österreichische Bundesregierung und politische Entscheidungsgremien auf allen Ebenen zu übermitteln, und will darüber hinaus Entscheidungsgrundlagen auch für den privaten Sektor und einen Wissensfundus für akademische Institutionen bereitstellen. Ähnlich den IPCC-Sachstandsberichten liegt dem AAR14 das Prinzip zugrunde, entscheidungsrelevant zu sein, aber keinen empfehlenden Charakter zu haben. Rund 240 österreichische Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler haben in einer gemeinsamen, dreijährigen Anstrengung diesen ersten Sachstandsbericht zum Klimawandel in Österreich erarbeitet und damit den aktuellen Stand des Wissens zu Ausprägungen des Klimawandels in Österreich, seinen Folgen, Minderungs- und Anpassungsmaßnahmen zusammengestellt. Gedruckt mit Unterstützung des Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF).

Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is a major transplantation complication. The purpose of this study was to measure immune cell subsets by flow cytometry early after transplantation (before median day of GVHD onset) to identify subsets that may play a role in GVHD pathogenesis. We also measured the subsets later after transplantation to determine which subsets may be influenced by GVHD or its treatment. We studied 219 patients. We found that acute GVHD (aGVHD) was preceded by high counts of CD4 T cells and CD8 T cells. It was followed by low counts of total and naive B cells, total and cytolytic NK cells, and myeloid and plasmacytoid dendritic cells. Chronic GVHD (cGVHD) was preceded by low counts of memory B cells. In conclusion, both CD4 and CD8 T cells appear to play a role in the pathogenesis of aGVHD. Generation of B cells, NK cells, and dendritic cells may be hampered by aGVHD and/or its treatment. Memory B cells may inhibit the development of cGVHD.

Along with the increasing world population and the technological advancement during the last centuries both energy consumption and the demand for land have increased simultaneously. Climate change at its estimated pace poses serious challenges for society, policy, and the economy. In order to develop suitable strategies for adaptation, fundamental knowledge about the climate in the past, present, and potentially in the future is required on a global and a regional scale. Thus, a scientific assessment of observed and projected changes of climate variables and indices is an inevitable precondition for appropriate adaptation and mitigation measures. Because the terms “weather” and “climate” are often misunderstood, a few general definitions have to be explained first. While “weather” means the state of the atmosphere in a certain moment, hour, day, or week, “climate” is defined as the statistical description of weather, including averages and variability as well as the return intervals of extremes over a period of at least 30 years [defined by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO)] (WMO 2011). The most relevant climate parameters characterising this period are surface variablesair temperature, precipitation, radiation, humidity, cloud cover and wind. Closely related to this definition