HISTALP HISTORY: 1997-2001

More climate elements – start of international cooperation

One nationally (ALOCLIM (BMWF-GZ. 308.938/3-IV/B3/96), Auer et al., 2001a and b) and one EU-funded project (ALPCLIM, ENV4-CT97-0639, Auer et al., 2001c ) allowed for doing the next steps towards HISTALP:
The ALOCLIM-activities (Austrian Longterm Climate) expanded the region through including bordernear longterm series from Switzerland, Germany Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slowenia and introduced several additional climate elements (air pressure, sunshine duration, cloudiness, relative humidity, vapour pressure) Statmap - 1 shows the ALOCLIM-station-network. A systematic approach to include metadata from station histories further developed the quality of the process of homogenising (Aguilar et al., 2003 ).
Within ALPCLIM (Environmental and climate records from high elevation alpine glaciers), ZAMG’s pre-HISTALP group expanded their activities for the two elements temperature and precipitation to the recent extension of the “Greater Alpine Region” (henceforth GAR) covering the complete mountain-chain of the Alps and including their wider surroundings from 4 to 19°E and from 43 to 49°N. The focal point of the instrumental climate part in ALPCLIM was to support icecore records from the Monte Rosa and Mont Blanc summit regions for calibration, to contribute to a better physical understanding of high elevated stable isotope records and to study the spatial representation of the icecore sites at greater Alpine and at European scale (Schöner et al., 2002 ). A first analysis over the entire GAR was published (Böhm et al., 2001 ) which summed up the homogenisation activities at the example of temperature.

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