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Project Findings In Action

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I have thoroughly enjoyed helping out in the data collection for this project, and have found the historical stories quite captivating. I would certainly be interested in continuing with my participation in the project, especially in regards to the recording of the historical anthropogenic interactions on the Arctic landscape. One of those captivating stories I stumbled upon when reading through the old weather blog, was on the USS Jeannette. The story delves into the 1879 exploration voyage headed to the north pole from San Francisco with 33 hands on deck. Three years later when they finally made their way back, only 13 remained. As the old logs were transcribed it illustrated how the drawn out catastrophe unfolded when the vessel found itself wedged in the ice floes, which is where it remained for two years before it sank from the immense power of the ice. The loss of the ship meant the crew had to venture 1000 km across these dangerous floes to civilization. In the process eight m...
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Public Outreach

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The advertising of this project is placed in the right location, highlighted on the zooniverse website for citizen science projects. It is here that individuals who are interested in volunteering to support in data collection for various projects can easily find the description for the project and the link to the project page to get involved. Where I think public outreach is lacking, is awareness that these sorts of citizen science projects exist. Before this course I had no idea that I could have a key part in contributing to science from my very own home. I think more people would be interested in volunteering if they were just made aware of the opportunity. College classrooms are a great way to make students aware, maybe even requiring them to get involved in a project like in this course may fruition into a continued interest. This project will definitely have a positive influence on conservation, especially in an educational way. From analyzing these old entries, it will allow f...
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Transcribing

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I spent over an hour this evening perusing through old log entries and transcribing the old text. Some of the text was quite challenging, especially some dates. With the aid of context clues and reading aloud, I was able to transcribe most very accurately. I have inserted some images from todays transcription session as a representation of my findings. This transcription gave me some trouble where 'did' is on the upper right, and I am assuming the individual was writing fast by the occasional untidiness in the log entry. This can be seen in some of the crosses for the T's. It reads: Saw whales, lowered twice for them, did not see them from the boats latter. This one took me a second and I had to play over the possibilities in my head, but eventually came up with the correct deciphering of snow squalls. This is a commonly asked subject for transcribing regarding wind direction and force. It reads: Blowing strong from the north .  This transcriptio...
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Project Design

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As I have eluded to, the citizen science project I am working on is the Old Weather Whaling project. It is one of the projects within Old Weather that is led by Zooniverse and its many partners. The goal of Old Weather: Whaling, is to draw out weather measurements, especially interactions with sea ice, in addition to other historic data from the 19th and early 20th century whaling ships. Overexploitation of whales in more temperate waters from extensive harvests in the 1800's required whalers to move into more extreme conditions to pursue their quarry in the 19th and early 20th century. In this near inhospitable environment, whale ships would keep record in their voyage log of the days events; including a detailed account of the weather each day. The landscape at this time in the artic was inundated with ice bergs, floes, and a unique ecosystem endemic to this part of the world. The reduction of sea ice in the Artic in more recent times is a major indicator of a changing clima...
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Transcribing

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I spent an hour and a half on 11/16/17 and another hour and a half on 11/17/17 transcribing. It was challenging at some points to decipher some of the text, and unfortunately there was a few I had to pass on as illegible, since I was unable to make sense of the old writing. Below are multiple examples of what would come up from markings of interest by other individuals that I have transcribed. I also inserted some entries I found quite interesting in the process of interpreting the old whaling logs. A common marking for transcription was for weather descriptions, including this one regarding wind direction and force. It says: Light wind from the S.W. (South west). In this other example of a transcription it asks for the date, which is: October 7th 1890. Here it asked to transcribe the marking of a section that describes a ship boring, warping, tracking, or ramming in close pack ice. It reads: Westward the ice slacked and worked a mile or two to the eastward. ...
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Marking 11/15/17

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This evening starting around 10pm, I spent an hour and a half reading and marking important information in an old private log book, from the Pacific Steam Whaling Co. This was a steam and sail powered whaling ship in the 1900 whaling season out on its 14th voyage. Each page had a series of questions that would popup with inquiries needing to be answered with either a yes or no for better analysis of the entries. The questions were: Are there any unmarked date entries present? Is there location or position information present that has not been marked? Is there any unmarked mentions of sea ice? Are there any unmarked descriptions of the weather? Select any additional unmarked items that are present/mentioned. It would give the option of event, art, or next question. If there was an unmarked event, it would give you the options of whaling activity, ship interaction, interaction with natives, social, and other. If there was an unmarked item that fell under art, then the options of illus...
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INTRODUCTION

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The citizen science project I decided to embark on is called the Old Weather Arctic Project. Dr. Kevin Wood is the lead investigator on this popular project, that is backed by thousands of citizen scientist volunteers across the world who are dedicating their time to help explore, mark, and transcribe historic weather entries. The task of deciphering these old whaling, exploration, and patrolling ship records from the Arctic is in much need of volunteer assistance, because it is only capable through human abilities to understand the context and diverse handwritings. By picking out relevant historical weather information and through the use of computer models, it is possible for scientists to understand clearly what past weather phenomena was like, which aids in extrapolating weather patterns for the future. This is especially important with the present uncertainty of climate change in the world as the repercussions of this alteration have began to take shape. Below is a short video fo...
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