Citizen Science and Historical Weather: the DRAW Experience

In this talk presented at the 2022 AMS Community and Citizen Science Symposium, Dr. Victoria Slonosky discusses how citizen scientists around the world have been transcribing historical weather observations. Her project, the McGill DRAW (Data Rescue: Archives and Weather) is working with citizen scientists to transcribe the McGill Observatory weather records, which represent one of the best sets of historical weather in Canada. The complete original records are being transcribed, including variables such as cloud cover and weather symbols. Nearly 1.5 million data points have been transcribed by hundreds of users, with a core group of superusers becoming experts in historical climate observations.