photo by William Hall

Help create weather models that forecast the future of Earth’s weather and climate. Logbooks detailing weather conditions were maintained by historic ships using pen and ink. Many of these logbooks have not been digitally transcribed and thus we have gaps in our knowledge and data about old weather patterns. This project asks for your help in transcribing these old logbooks into a digital format.

Oceans absorb and transport large amounts of heat and water around the world which affects our weather. Old Weather contains logbooks from the Arctic since the mid-19th century, Antarctic from the late 19th century/early 20th century, and from trading ships between the UK, India and China from the 1780’s to the 1830’s. By transcribing the location and weather conditions from hundreds or thousands of logbooks, people can feed that data into computer models, generating a 3D picture of weather around the globe. By understanding weather variability in the past, we can improve our understanding of what weather will do in the future.

Project owners + coordinators:
Chris Lintott, Zooniverse lead
Stuart Lynn, developer
The Old Weather Team