6
BAMOS
Sept 2017
News
Citizen science workshop
Linden Ashcroft
BAMOS Editor, member of Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth (Australian chapter)
Around 30 dedicated people braved a woolly Melbourne day to
attend the AMOS Weather and Climate Citizen Science workshop
at The University of Melbourne on Monday 21 August. Students,
retirees, and those in between came along to learn how they
could contribute to active weather and climate research.
The workshop was broken into two sections: the morning
was full of presentations, while the afternoon provided an
opportunity to take part in citizen science by either learning
how to set up a weather station, or by digitising historical
weather observations in AMOS’s first ever “transcribe-a-thon”.
I opened proceedings with some background on the value of
historical weather data and the range of different international
and local projects that need citizen scientists to help rescue
important climate data. Kathy McInnes from CSIRO shared her
work on rescuing tide gauge data, including the discovery of
tidal observations for Williamstown in Melbourne dating back
to the late 1800s.
Mac Benoy from the Bureau and Australian Meteorological
Association (AMETA) in Adelaide finished the “old weather”
section of presentations with an overview of the tireless work
done over more than a decade by the AMETA citizen science data
rescue team. The AMETA group have imaged and transcribed
many thousands of observations from archival sources in
Adelaide and beyond, including more than forty years of daily
data from the folios of Sir Charles Todd.
After morning tea, we were were treated to presentations by Tim
Morrow and David Gooding from the Bureau of Meteorology.
Tim is an expert in home observing kit, and shared some of
his extensive knowledge of the benefits and limitations of the
many models on the market. David Gooding, Senior Analyst
with the Bureau’s Weather Observations Website (WOW) crowd-
sourcing portal, provided information on the value of WOW
observations, and the current network of more than 600 sites
across Australia since the site launched in early 2014.
The afternoon sessions forced people to make a decision: were
they more interested in the past or the present? Luckily the
group of intrepid citizen scientists was split pretty much down
the middle, meaning old data could be rescued and new data
could be recorded! Josh from weather instrument provider
Davis brought along a great selection of equipment to show,
and he, Tim and David ran a lively session on setting up a home
station.
Across the campus, Kathy and I led troops in an effort to
transcribe hourly meteorological and tide gauge observations
from Williamstown for 1946. Such high resolution data for the
mid-20th century is an exciting find, and those who took part
enjoyed the opportunity to connect with previously unseen
history while contributing to current climate science.
Many thanks to ARCCSS, the Bureau of Meteorology, all other
Symposium sponsors, and the presenters for their support for
the workshop. A big thanks also to all of the attendees, many of
whom are now hooked on AMOS citizen science.