Project to transcribe old ship logs provides important weather data

Abstract

Kathy Wendolkowski is a citizen scientist. It's a term that Wendolkowski considers far too lofty for what she claims is simply a happy addiction that she and others have for transcribing old logs from naval ship and other vessels. They perform this task to glean the regularly recorded weather data from those logs for the benefit of science. For Wendolkowski, though, greater satisfaction comes from reading what the logs also reveal about the daily lives of the sailors as well as any accompanying historical drama.