Asheville, North Carolina – Working with over 4,000 citizen scientists from all over the world, the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites – North Carolina (CICS-NC) announces the launch of the new version of CycloneCenter.org for an even more enriching experience!
A unique citizen-science project, CycloneCenter.org is a web-based interface that enables the public to help analyze the intensities of past tropical cyclones around the globe. Patterns in storm imagery are best recognized by the human eye, so scientists are enlisting the public. According to Dr. Carl Schreck, Research Associate at CICS-NC: “It would take 8 years for a trained analyst to do 210,000 image classifications. Our citizen scientists did that many in just 8 months!”
The new website will teach volunteers more about tropical cyclones while also engaging them to do more classifications:
- Volunteers can pick their favorite storm to classify and follow it through its entire lifecycle.
- The new website provides more guidance to volunteers during the classification process.
- Each week, volunteers will have a different storm from the record-breaking 2005 hurricane season, starting with Arlene, going through Katrina, Rita, Wilma and eventually Zeta.
- Volunteers can now share their storm on Facebook and Twitter and invite their social communities to participate!
Dr. Carl Schreck added, “Every year, thousands of people are affected by hurricanes and tropical cyclones. Cyclone Center is a unique opportunity for the public to contribute to the science of these dangerous storms.”
CycloneCenter.org was developed as a partnership with the Citizen Science Alliance, the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information and the University of North Carolina in Asheville.
Please join us and connect to CycloneCenter.org to start your journey with the science of cyclones!
About Cyclone Center: http://www.cyclonecenter.org
About the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites North Carolina:
CICS-NC, a unit of NC State University, provides collaborative research in support of NOAA mission goals related to meteorological satellite and climate data and information research and development. CICS-NC scientific vision centers on observation from Earth-orbiting satellites and prediction using realistic mathematical models of the present and future behavior of the Earth System. Furthermore, CICS-NC is an inter-institutional research center of the University of North Carolina system, a focal point for climate science research, and a facilitator of regional economic development through its engagement activities. www.cicsnc.org