Ship Data Transcribers for the OldWeather Project: Thank You and Please Continue All of the Really Excellent Work

[Lawrence_Spencer]

Hello and pleasant day to all of the OldWeather Citizen-Science Project transcribers out there! My name is Lawrence Spencer, and I am an Associate Scientist who works for the University of Colorado-Boulder / Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CU-Boulder / CIRES) and who is affiliated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Physical Sciences Laboratory (NOAA’s PSL) in Boulder, Colorado. As a scientist, I am a member of a research team that is composed of other scientists (and myself included), and we perform very interesting and exciting research in our scientific research careers! I would like to take this opportunity to inform all of you that we are definitely converting and analyzing/utilizing the OldWeather Citizen-Science ship data transcriptions that we receive for our scientific research purposes and projects! Provided below is the direct URL link to an article that is entitled "Getting oldWeather data ship-shape for science”, which I had written and posted onto the official OldWeather Blog a little more than five years ago back on Tuesday, December 04th, 2018, and, hopefully, this will provide you with a better understanding of the ways in which the OldWeather Citizen-Science ship data transcriptions have been utilized. Here is the article URL link:
https://oldweather.wordpress.com/2018/1 ... r-science/

At your convenience, please kindly take the time and read this particular article, even if you have already read it sometime in the past. It is a really excellent source of encouragement for individuals who are actively involved with the project, and I also think that it would serve as a really excellent source for encouraging new individuals to become actively involved with the transcription work that is associated with this particular project. With all of this being said, I would kindly encourage all of you who are actively involved with the transcription work that is associated with the OldWeather Citizen-Science Project, including both long-time and new transcribers, to please continue performing all of the really excellent work that you have been doing so far for this particular project. All of it is greatly and sincerely appreciated! Thank You!

In addition to this, throughout the past 3 years, I have received 200 Tab-Separated-Values (TSV) data files that contain different types of detailed data, such as geographical positions (latitude coordinates and longitude coordinates), mean sea level pressure observations, 2-meter air temperature observations, sea surface temperature observations, wind direction observations, and wind speed observations, where each individual TSV data file contains data from a particular ship and a particular year. For each one of these individual 200 TSV data files, I have performed a conversion of the data to convert the data from the TSV data file format, in which I have received it, into the International Maritime Meteorological Archive (IMMA) data file format, which is the particular data file format that I utilize for my scientific research purposes and projects that involve the ship data observations to be utilized in some way. These IMMA data files contain the geographical positions data and the meteorological observations data that I have explained here in this paragraph. During the past one year, I have participated in a particular research project called the 20th Century Reanalysis, Version 3 (20CRv3) Wind Data Assimilation Project, and it involved utilizing some of these IMMA data files to which I have referred here in this paragraph. For this particular project, I utilized some of the meteorological data observations from several different ships and from a few different time periods in order to make statistical comparisons of data from different sources, one of which being ships associated with the OldWeather Citizen-Science Project. The wind data observations from the ships were assimilated into the running of a computer model for producing an experiment of the 20th Century Reanalysis, Version 3 (20CRv3) System, and several runs of this computer model were performed in order to produce several different experiments of the 20CRv3 System. After these several different experiments of the 20CRv3 System were produced and became available, I then was able to start making data comparisons in order to determine whether or not there was any difference, and, if so, how much, in the data comparisons by utilizing the 20CRv3 experiments that contain the assimilated wind data observations in them. These data comparisons were performed by utilizing the available data observations from ships associated with the OldWeather Citizen-Science Project and the data values from experiments of the 20CRv3 System for the 2 meteorological variables of mean sea level pressure and 2-meter air temperature for the 3 time periods of October 01st, 1861 - March 31st, 1862; October 01st, 1877 - March 31st, 1878; and October 01st, 1930 - March 31st, 1931. Furthermore, these types of data comparisons were also performed by utilizing a 20CRv3 experiment that did not contain any assimilated wind data observations in it in order to determine how much of an improvement, if any, that there was in the data comparisons by utilizing the several 20CRv3 experiments that contain the assimilated wind data observations versus the one 20CRv3 experiment that did not contain any assimilated wind data observations. In addition, these data comparisons were performed by utilizing Interactive Data Language (IDL) computer programs, which utilized the proper IMMA data files that I had created containing the ship data observations (these files are referred to earlier in this paragraph), and these computer programs created graphical output in the form of time series plots and scatter plots, which illustrated the data comparisons by utilizing data from experiments of the 20CRv3 System and OldWeather Citizen-Science ships for the aforementioned variables and the aforementioned time periods. All of the resulting time series plots and scatter plots that were created illustrated the data comparisons and displayed different statistics on them, such as the total number of observations, the Bias, the Root-Mean-Squared-Error, and the Correlation (Correlation Coefficient). For this particular 20th Century Reanalysis, Version 3 (20CRv3) Wind Data Assimilation Project that I have participated in during the past one year, the main meteorological variables of observations that were utilized from the IMMA data files that I had created for the OldWeather Citizen-Science ships are wind speed and wind direction, mean sea level pressure, and 2-meter air temperature. Finally, the geographical positions data (the latitude coordinates and the longitude coordinates) from these IMMA data files were utilized to create different maps displaying the voyage positions/tracks of the ships that were utilized in this particular project, and these maps of ship voyage positions/tracks properly corresponded to the 3 time periods of October 01st, 1861 - March 31st, 1862; October 01st, 1877 - March 31st, 1878; and October 01st, 1930 - March 31st, 1931, respectively, that were utilized in this scientific research investigation. I also utilized different IDL computer programs, which utilized these IMMA data files, to create these maps. This was a very interesting and exciting scientific research project that I was involved in during the past one year, and one of the sources of data that was utilized in the data comparisons/analyses for this project were the ship data observations from ships associated with the OldWeather Citizen-Science Project!

In conclusion, I sincerely hope that this post of encouragement and explanation that I have provided here on the OldWeather Forum is helpful and beneficial to all of the OldWeather Citizen-Science Project transcribers out there, including both long-time and new transcribers. Again, just to reiterate, thank you very much to all of you for all of your time, hard work, dedication, assistance, and support with this particular project, and I, along with all of the other scientists who are a part of our scientific research team, greatly and sincerely appreciate all of it! Please continue to perform all of the really excellent work that you have been doing so far for the OldWeather Citizen-Science Project and help to contribute to the very exciting and interesting scientific research work that we perform in our careers! Thank You! Have a fantastic day and week, everybody!

Kindest Regards,
Lawrence Spencer

[pommystuart]

Thanks Lawrence.
It's good to get some feed back that our transcribing is going to some good use.
I did know it went somewhere (Michael gave me some insight), but to have a breakdown as to it's use adds a dimension to it.
Thanks again
Stuart.

[Michael]

Thank you so much Lawrence! You didn't mention as to whether the Old Weather data made a positive difference in the models and, if so, by how much.

Nevertheless, it is good to see that the data we collect is being put to good use.