IEDRO TRAVELING TO LAPAZ, BOLIVIA IN PREPARATION FOR DATA RESCUE PROJECT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) December 13, 2011 -- As part of International Environmental Data Rescue Organization’s (IEDRO’s) mission, we collect, photograph and digitize historic environmental data and share that data via the NOAA open database. Scientists are then able to conduct valuable regional and global climate change research.

After Dr. Sharon LeDuc’s visit to Bolivia’s national meteorological service last February , an agreement was reached between IEDRO and the Bolivian Meteorological Society to make Bolivian climate data available to NOAA for scientific research worldwide. In early 2012, Tom Ross of IEDRO will be traveling to LaPaz to meet with Dario Di Franco, coordinator of IEDRO translators. While there, Tom and Dario will instruct staff at the meteorology office how to organize and protect their historic weather data. In a follow-up meeting by Dr. LeDuc and Dario, equipment will be purchased and the Bolivian volunteers will be trained to photograph the data.

The rescue and study of historical climate data is critical to the further development of countries such as Bolivia. The emerging economy of Bolivia is very sensitive to natural disasters, such as the floods of 2007 and 2011. While the rescue of climate data will not prevent such occurrences, being able to examine and interpret the data will help scientists develop more accurate climate models, which in turn will allow governments to better prepare for extreme weather conditions and avoid unnecessary devastation and loss of human lives.

IEDRO is a US-based, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that rescues and digitizes historic weather observations throughout the world. Our efforts are supported and endorsed by the NOAA, the World Meteorological Organization and other international groups concerned with the preservation and digitization of this valuable data.

Accurate weather forecast models are only as good as the data put into them. To conduct global climate change research, it is critical that weather data spanning hundreds of years be collected from locations across our entire planet and made available to worldwide.

Digitized historic weather observations also can enable countries to:

Improve community planning; change requirements for constructing and reinforcing buildings, bridges and public services to withstand predicted severe weather.

Educate farmers of the real frequency of drought, show them how to plant more appropriate crops and how much to save for the famine years to avoid starvation.

Provide public health officials with probabilities for insect-borne disease outbreaks, enabling them to take preventive measures and save thousands of lives.

Provide flood prediction models with historic precipitation and runoff relationships, dramatically improving flood and mudslide warning accuracies.

Only with accurate information about the past can we make the necessary preparations for the future. With historic weather data we can conduct climate change research, forecast the spread of disease, and improve flood forecasting. Rescuing historic environmental data can do more to prevent human suffering and death than any other endeavor in the 21st century.

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