To better understand how climate change will bear upon our future , we have to know more about the atmospheric condition patterns of the past . Historical whaling logs concur 10 worth of untapped conditions records , and now amateur scientist from around the man are exercise hard to check that that information gets put to use .
Many commercial-grade whaling ships of the mid-19th century sailed far north into the Pacific Arctic — an country that ’s especially crucial to our understanding of global heating . It was the responsibility of the first mate of each ship to keep a meticulous logbook detailing information like parallel of latitude and longitude , temperature , weather patterns , icebergs , and the location of ice shelves . pull this data will help scientist build more precise climate shape models that chart data point from before the rise of atmospheric condition satellites .
But before this data can be used , it need to be transcribed . The online citizen - science projectOld Weather — which in the yesteryear transcribe the logbooks of both British and Americanships — is now focusing on 500,000 handwritten Sir Frederick Handley Page from whale logs . so as to make the job easier , they ’ve enlist the help of amateur scientists and historian to transcribe the mountain of information . player select a ship and decipher the script .
Screenshot from Old Weather : Whaling
Once it ’s finished , the researchers behind the project believe they ’ll have assembled the most comprehensive certification potential of that place and meter . Even with the help of crowd - sourced military volunteer , they still estimate the projection wo n’t be complete for about another year .
[ h / t : City research laboratory
