Today, NCDC announced the launch of a new website that could
help climate scientists estimate the historical intensities of
hurricanes around the world faster than before—and the public is
invited to help. The website, CycloneCenter.org, allows
volunteers to examine color-enhanced images from 30 years of
tropical cyclones taken from the archives of NCDC’s Hurricane
Satellite Data system. Then, the site will guide users through a
process to analyze a specific hurricane image and answer
questions, using a simplified technique for estimating the
maximum surface wind speed of tropical cyclones.
CycloneCenter.org was developed in partnership with the Citizen
Science Alliance, the Cooperative Institute for Climate and
Satellites, and the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
The method for determining the strength of tropical cyclones has
been applied differently around the world and has changed over
time. That inconsistency has led to uncertainties in the global
historical record of tropical cyclone activity,