Weather Detective seeking citizen scientists

Weather Detective, an online citizen science project, is seeking assistance to help uncover important weather records hidden in the log books of ships that sailed the seas around Australia in the 1890s and 1900s. The initiative is being undertaken by ABC Science in conjunction with the University of Southern Queensland as part of National Science Week 2014.

Throughout the month of August, the organisers will be crowd-sourcing helpers to search through old ships’ log books for weather observations and - using a simple web interface - transcribe those observations into a global database of weather over the centuries. All that’s required is a computer or tablet and a connection to the internet.

The database, Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth (ACRE), will be available to anyone. ACRE aims to put together a full history of Earth’s weather back to 1850, the details of which will be used to reconstruct a 3D picture of what was happening with air masses and air pressure systems at the time. The goal of the project is to enhance long-term weather forecasts by understanding the weather of the past.

Interested parties, including school groups, can register their details at http://www.weatherdetective.net.au/join-now/. Registrants will receive a short tutorial on how to tag and transcribe weather observations in the log books, and can enter a competition once they have transcribed a certain number of observations.