---
title: "Old Weather"
chunk: 2/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Weather"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:15:13.949352+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Results ==
Initial results of Phase I will be published after data collection is complete and conclusions can be made.
Indeed, the readings are still being assessed at a very broad level. But the distribution of temperature by latitude and wind force by latitude have been plotted for 120,000 results for which three readings have been taken.
Large numbers of online volunteers at Old Weather from 2010 to 2012 transcribed historical weather data and naval events from the logbooks of the 314 Royal Navy ships of the World War 1 era. 350,000 pages were transcribed and include logs from ships present at the Battle of the Falklands, at Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, East Africa, and the China Station. Nearly all of the transcriptions have been edited and published. Brief details of all the ships can be found here.
The Old Weather U. S. Federal Ships project is still ongoing. As of the end of 2023, 248 ship/years had been processed, with over 7.6 million weather observations digitized.  Data from up to 20 different weather elements have been recorded. Data from the project was analyzed by NOAA to reconstruct what had long been described as a hurricane that hit Sitka in Alaska in 1880. The reanalysis showed that it wasn’t a hurricane, but part of a much larger storm system known as an extra-tropical cyclone.

== Security and political considerations ==
Because climate change is a very political issue, interested parties could try to corrupt the data by, say, entering temperature figures that are too high or too low. Because three sets of records for each data point will be entered, any set from a digitiser showing a marked deviation from the other records should be easily checkable and eliminated. Large-scale fraud is unlikely because the data is entered one log page at a time, and so is immune to a spam type of attack. Collaborative projects such as Linux and Wikipedia have for the most part been able to rely on the transparent honesty of those taking part.

== Accidental errors ==
Accidental errors, such as reading '4's for '7's are possible, but often context will sort this out. A temperature of 40 °F is unlikely to be correct for a latitude in the tropics and may safely be assumed to be 70 °F.

== See also ==
Zooniverse projects:

== References ==

Notes
Lauren Morello (ClimateWire) (2010-11-05). "Historic Sea Voyages Buoy Climate Science". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-11-11.
Marissa Cevallos (2010-09-09). "Mining The Maritime Past For Clues To Climate's Future". Science News. Retrieved 2010-11-11.

== External links ==
Official website
The collection of Old Weather information is authorized under the OMB Control Number included in the Citizen Science & Crowdsourcing Information Collection.