Mining the maritime past for clues to climate’s future

Researchers collect data with a mashup of 19th century ship records and 21st century crowdsourcing

Climate scientists need your help — not by sending up weather balloons or drilling ice cores in Antarctica, but by turning on your computer.

CLIMATE CRUISER As part of an effort to digitize all the weather data logged on British naval vessels around World War I, more than 500 people transcribed logbooks from the H.M.S.