Participate in Real Science – Help Classify Tropical Cyclone Winds

Cyclone Center, now in its third year, is a website that allows citizen scientists like you to help meteorologists like us determine the maximum wind speed (or “intensity”) of historical global tropical cyclones.   We need your help to complete this ambitious project.

Why am I needed?

First,  there are way too many images (nearly 300,000!) for us to do it alone!  Second, your responses as a group are almost always just as good as an expert!  And third, there are disagreements in the historical record that must be addressed.    For instance, there are studies in published literature that suggest that typhoon activity is both increasing and decreasing in the western Pacific Ocean. Clearly both cannot be true!

Why are there questions about tropical cyclone data?