Entrepreneurs seek $10,000 to digitize climate data records in Asheville

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Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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weather_records_2013Here’s the note from loyal readers Matt and Josh regarding their project, Written 2 Digital. The two are seeking $10,000 to digitize historical climate data. Here’s some background from the two:

This is regarding a new project that is trying to duplicate the former Climate Data Modernization Program that was a program in the National Climatic Data Center here in Asheville. CDMP was approximately a ~15 million dollar federal program that employed about 150 people some of whom were located in Asheville. CDMP was terminated by the Federal Government in 2011 and the program basically stopped.

In its 11 year life, CDMP digitized about 80% of the climate records at NCDC in Asheville. Approximately 25 million records are left to be digitized. These records often date back to the early 1800s and are from all over the world. There are also some really interesting historical records from WWII.

My partner in this project, a former employee of CDMP, has spent the last two years trying to resume digitization of these records. Including an attempt to become a non-profit, but we were unable to get enough funding and traction.

We are now trying another approach and have started a crowdfunding campaign to raise a minimal amount for equipment and office space to begin digitizing this data again. We believe there is a private industry approach to this gap in federal funding. This data is extremely important to the climate world. As it will add years to the climate record. We are working on a study to look at rainfall for Asheville.

Here is our crowdfunding campaign site that we are currently working on to help get us off the ground.

Thanks!

Matt Card and Josh Wexler
Cofounders
Written 2 Digital

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Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

  • 1

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