Illustration of stages in data rescue of historical weather records using citizen science and artificial intelligence the GloSAT project has investigated.

John Kennedy, Amani Becker, Elizabeth Kent, Stuart E. Middleton, Ed Hawkins, Loitongbam Gyanendro Singh

Published: 01 Jan 2025, Last Modified: 07 Nov 2025figshareEveryoneRevisionsCC BY-SA 4.0
Abstract: Illustration shows the process by which ship logs and other historical records of weather observations reach modern digital archives. The process shows the logs, storage in archives, digital imaging and transcription as well as methods developed in the GloSAT project that use Artificial Intelligence methods to identify and digitise tabulated data. Finally the data are stored in international data centres for long-term archiving.More information on data rescue funded by GloSAT can be found on the project website (glosat.org) and in Luterbacher et al. (2024); Teleti et al. (2023) and Hawkins et al. (2023).Luterbacher, J., Allan, R., Wilkinson, C., Hawkins, E., Teleti, P., Lorrey, A., Brönnimann, S., Hechler, P., Velikou, K., Xoplaki, E. (2024) The Importance and Scientific Value of Long Weather and Climate Records; Examples of Historical Marine Data Efforts across the Globe, Climate, 12, 39, doi: 10.3390/cli12030039Teleti, P., Hawkins, E., Wood, K.R. (2023) Digitizing weather observations from World War II US naval ship logbooks, Geoscience Data Journal, doi: 10.1002/gdj3.222Hawkins, E., Brohan, P., Burgess, S. N., Burt, S., Compo, G. P., Gray, S. L., Haigh, I.D., Hershbach, H., Kuijjer, K., Martinez-Alvarado, O., McColl, C., Schurer, A.P., Slivinski, L., Williams, J. (2023) Rescuing historical weather observations improves quantification of severe windstorm risks, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 23(4), 1465-1482, doi: 10.5194/nhess-23-1465-2023