Cyclonecenter: Crowdsourcing insights into historical tropical cyclone intensities

There is perhaps no more destructive a climate extreme than tropical cyclones, yet much uncertainty remains in what, if any, trends have occurred in tropical cyclone intensities across much of the globe. Away from the North Atlantic basin where aircraft reconnaissance is extensive unless cyclones make landfall their intensities are estimated almost exclusively from various forms of satellite imagery. Cyclonecenter is undertaking a novel crowdsourcing approach to reclassifying historical HURSAT infrared imagery from geostationary satellites used in the IBtRACS dataset. To date over two hundred thousand classifications have been undertaken by citizen scientists. Here the rationale, methodology and some very initial analyses for all storms in 2005 and the most uncertain historical storms in each basin will be highlighted. You can also participate by clicking on cyclonecenter.org - every click counts.