Surface Temp

Using CODAP to Analyze Urban Heat Island Data

2025-02-28T14:28:57Z

It was great seeing all of the data that students collected for the Urban Heat Island Intensive Observation Period in December 2024. I decided to look at some of the data using a graphing tool called CODAP from the Concord Consortium. It is easy to use and makes some neat graphs fast.

First, I downloaded all of the surface temperature data from the GLOBE website for December using the ADAT system (Advanced Data Access Tool). There are other ways to get data from the GLOBE data base including the Vis system and API.

Second, I brought the data into CODAP and clicked on map to map it.

It's great to see all of the students entering data. I would love to see more data west of the Mississippi River in the United States. I'll have to work on getting more students involved.

Then, I had to change the surface temperature data and anything else I wanted to plot on a graph to a numeric value.

Here is how the data looks by latitude.

Most of the observations were taken in the Northern Hemisphere. You can see that as we go north, the temperatures are lower. How does snow affect the temperature?

The font is a little small. I haven't figured out how to make it bigger yet. Dry ground is the left column, snow is the middle and wet is the right. I put the means for each surface condition so it is easy to separate. There are many fewer observations taken on snow than any other surface condition. Wet ground is, on average, about 15 C cooler than the dry ground. This may be due to the location of the observations too. There are many observations from Saudi Arabia for instance that are all dry and hot. Snow is slightly below freezing with the lowest surface temperature of about -10 C.

This was just a quick analysis of some of the data. I hope you are able to do a project for the IVSS (International Virtual Science Symposium) https://www.globe.gov/news-events/globe-news/-/newsdetail/10157/announcing-the-2025-international-virtual-science-symposium-ivss-theme

I'll leave you with this. It has been quite cold in the Great Lakes area where I live. I've made an ice rink in my backyard and here is a video of my youngest son skating on it.

October Urban Heat Island Observations, December underway and plans for March

2023-12-18T03:32:00Z

The urban heat island intensive observation period (IOP) this October yielded about 25% more observations than last year. I only look at surface temperature observations since that is the protocol that I developed (with help from others) and there are many other air temperature and cloud observations in the GLOBE database that are not part of the urban heat island IOP. This October there were a total of 2353 surface temperature observations made by 115 schools. This underscores the commitment of participating schools in contributing valuable insights into surface temperature variations.

The Top 10 Schools were:

School Name	number of observations	Rank
Brazil GLOBE v-School	163	1
University Of Toledo	148	2
Saint Andrew Catholic School	96	3
Abu baker alsedik basic school	72	4
Clay High School	68	5
Team Phoenix (Five Keys Schools and Programs)	65	6
Yamama Secondary School at Riyadh	56	7
Boston University School of Education GLOBE v-School	54	8
OOU Goce Delcev	51	9
The 19th Secondary Girls School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah	51	9
University of Toledo GLOBE v-School	50	10
Total Observations: 2353	Samples taken by top ten schools: 874

It is noteworthy that the 10 schools that took the most observations accounted for about 25% of all of the observations. The database has gotten enough observations that students can develop research projects for the International Virtual Science Symposium (IVSS).

https://www.globe.gov/news-events/meetings_symposia/virtual-conferences

I had my undergraduate students take observations as an assignment. It seemed to work well. GLOBE now allows you to set up many student accounts. Then, the students were able to use their phones to enter their observations through the GLOBE Observer app. I provided the infrared thermometers. Here is a distribution of the observations. There are many new schools participating and many long-term schools.

Another interesting aspect of the October observations is that, in the United States down through Brazil, an Annular Solar Eclipse occurred. Many students, teachers and patrons at libraries took surface temperature, air temperature and cloud observations.

Then, in April 8, 2024, there will be a Total Solar Eclipse travel from Mexico, up through the United States into Canada. This is another great time to take observations.

Students in my Weather and Climate class at the University of Toledo did a research project. The surface temperature for Orangeville Public Library in Utah showed almost a 6 C decrease from before to during the Annular Eclipse. That seems pretty large to me since the sun was not completely covered. That is why we do the research though, because it isn’t always obvious.

This year, you can start now or in March, we would like you to take observations of your school grounds. We’ve seen that some schools have artificial turf for their playgrounds, sports fields or school grounds in general. And, these surfaces are extremely hot. We are wondering how hot this makes your school grounds. Also, in the United States, seniors sometimes paint the parking space in the parking lot that they park in. Is that something in other parts of the world? How does painting a parking space change the temperature of the parking?

Urban Heat Island IOP October Wrap-up

2022-11-16T06:27:10Z

A video of me talking about the IOP is here:

https://youtu.be/gAwHjoCJNe0

The GLOBE October Intensive Observation Period (IOP) for urban heat island had great data collecting from around the world. Data was collected by students at over 70 schools and 1471 observations of surface temperatures wee taken. A list of all of the schools is listed below.

Here is a map and a picture from Earth Heart Farms near Oak Harbor, OH. Students took field trips to the farm and learned about conservation efforts. The took urban heat island observations.

You will see in the images that the University of Toledo has a lot of observations and sites. I was able to loan infrared thermometers and air temperature thermometers to students in my classes at the University of Toledo. I know that there are some other schools around the world that have done the same thing. This allowed my students to take observations from a lot of places. That is one of the reasons there are so many observations around Toledo, Ohio. But, also some schools I work with, Perkins High School, Crestwood High School in Dearborn Heights, MI, Main Street Intermediate School in Norwalk, OH, Clay High School in Oregon, OH, and Hilltop High School in West Unity, OH, also took observations during the IOP.

Thank you all for taking observations and to contribute to the IOP.

School Name	Data Counts
University Of Toledo	191
Saint Andrew Catholic School	84
Clay High School	67
Ivano-Frankivsk City Environmental Station	52
SOU Bogdanci	46
Al-Khandaq Secondary School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah	45
Al-Ofous Secondary School at Al-Bahah	45
IES Eusebio Barreto	45
King Khalid Secondary School at Al-Hofuf	45
Sankalp Senior Secondary Day Boarding High School	45
OOU Goce Delcev	42
The 3rd Intermediate Girls School at Dhahran	42
The 1st Secondary Girls School at Al-Gonfutha	40
Kaohsiung Municipal Cianjin Junior High School	39
Medicinska Å¡kola Ante KuzmaniÄ‡a	39
OS Banija	39
Srednja Å¡kola BraÄ‡a RadiÄ‡	38
The 24th Seconadry Girls School at Makkah Al-Mukarramah	30
Alpena Elementary/Middle School	29
Main Street Intermediate School	29
OS Valentin Klarin	28
Tsangpo PS	27
SOU Josif Josifovski	26
2 Intermediate School Abu Arish At Jazan	25
Hafsah bint sirin basic school	24
Osnovna skola grofa Janka Draskovica	21
Al-Habeel Secondary School For Girls At Al-gunfodah	18
Welty Environmental Center	18
St.Michael School	15
Gozo College Middle School	13
National Kinmen Senior High School	12
OU â€œDimitar Miladinovâ€	12
Science Club Huechulafquen (After School)	12
Toledo Zoo and Aquarium	12
OS prof. Franje Viktora Signjara	11
Federal Government Girls' College Akure	10
Mingdao High School	10
Pyeongtaek Sujae Elementary School	10
Tennessee GLOBE v-School	10
Haripur Primary School	9
Ekonomska i trgovaÄka Å¡kola Dubrovnik	8
OS Sime Budinica	8
Hsin Tien Senior High School	7
The 97th Secondary Girls School at Jeddah	7
The Affiliated Senior High school of NCU	7
XV. gimnazija	7
OÅ Äurmanec	6
OS Josip Pupacic	6
Francis Walsh Intermediate School	5
Prirodoslovno-grafiÄka Å¡kola Zadar	5
The 1st Al-Mthulif Secondary Girls School at Al-Gonfutha	5
Danbury Local School District	4
University of South Florida (GLIDV699)	4
Damthang PS	3
III. osnovna skola Varazdin	3
Osamah bin Zayed School	3
Sawda Um AlMumineen School (5-12)	3
The 199th Intermediate Girls School at Riyadh	3
Custer High School	2
Greece GLOBE v-School	2
L2R	2
Mater Boni Consilii School	2
National Lo-Tung Senior High School	2
Wayne County Math/Science Center at Wayne County RESA GLOBE v-School	2
Al-Habeel Secondary School For Girls At Al-gunfodah	1
Altraif basic school	1
Navarre Elementary School (USOHQ4L6)	1
Niftarlake College	1
Science Working Group	1
SOU "Naum Naumovski-Borche"	1
St. Peter's Unity Secondary School	1
TEREZA Educational Center	1
test_mobile school 1	1
Tsangpo PS	1

Urban Heat Island Intensive Observation Period March 2022

2022-05-27T17:26:28Z

GLOBE completed another great month of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) Intensive Observation Period (IOP) in March 2022. 107 schools participated and took a total of 1699 observations throughout the month. It is great to see more and more schools becoming active in this very important project. UHI is becoming more and more important around the world. Saudia Arabia, Croatia, Greece and Taiwan had many schools take observations during March. I am so grateful for the participation of all of the students and teachers and the great work they have done. I would really like to encourage all of the teachers to have their students take surface temperature observations of more than one cover type. Have the students compare the surface temperature and air temperature above a grassy or vegetated surface as well as a built surface like asphalt or cement. The students will see how different materials have different temperatur

As you can see in the map below of the schools that took surface temperature observations during March, there is quite a wide spread of observations across the world.

The hottest temperature recorded by students during the March IOP was 67.6 degrees C on a dry/paved surface at Yubli School of the Negev in Israel. They joined GLOBE in 2019. The coolest temperature of -12.7 degree C was recorded by a school in Greece but one that falls under the virtual school designation.

You can see in this map of Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East below how the temperature varies across the region on March 2, 2022. The GLOBE observations are overlaid onto land surface temperature from the MODIS satellite sensor. You can do this with the GLOBE Visualization page. On the GLOBE webpage (http://globe.gov), go under GLOBE Data and Visualize Data. Then, click on the blue bar that says Enter the Visualization System.

Surface temperatures in the Saudi Arabia are the hottest and can be explained by the fact that much of Saudi Arabia is a desert. The observations in Croatia and Greece are further north and fall into the temperate climate zoon and are cooler.

Here is some great data from Greece showing the observations from 5 schools.

Schools that participated in the UHI IOP and the number of observations they took.

Brazil GLOBE v-School	100
Amal kfar yona	92
The 20th Secondary Girls School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah	64
Xrobb l-Ghagin	63
Iksal 'c' Primary School	47
Ivano-Frankivsk City Environmental Station	45
Greece GLOBE v-School	44
The 24th Seconadry Girls School at Makkah Al-Mukarramah	40
Yubli School of the Negev	37
The 1st Secondary Girls School at Al-Gonfutha	36
The first Arqah Secondary school Al-riyadh	34
Medicinska Å¡kola Ante KuzmaniÄ‡a	34
Al-Habeel Secondary School For Girls At Al-gunfodah	32
Sankalp Senior Secondary Day Boarding High School	32
The 199th Intermediate Girls School at Riyadh	31
Al-Ofous Secondary School at Al-Bahah	31
King Khalid Secondary School at Al-Hofuf	31
Kaohsiung Municipal Cianjin Junior High School	31
2 Intermediate School Abu Arish At Jazan	31
The 97th Secondary Girls School at Jeddah	31
OOU Goce Delcev	31
SOU Josif Josifovski	31
Nawan Secondary Girls School at Al-Makhwah	31
Elementary B	30
IES Eusebio Barreto	30
Abu baker alsedik basic school	30
OS Banija	29
SOU Bogdanci	28
The 1st Secondary Girls School at Dhahran	27
Hafsah bint sirin basic school	27
National Lo-Tung Senior High School	26
OS Valentin Klarin	25
Osnovna Å¡kola Rugvica	22
Taipei Municipal Wan Fang Senior High School(GLID3I86)	22
OS Dubovac	21
Horfish Elementary B School	19
St.Michael School	19
Freeport High School	19
Rowland Hall	17
The 1st Secondary Girls School at Sabya	17
Suankularb Wittayalai Nonthaburi school	17
OS Hugo Badalic	17
Yahalom	15
OS Sime Budinica	15
OS Josip Pupacic	14
L2R	13
Community Roots Academy	13
The Affiliated Senior High school of NCU	13
National Kinmen Senior High School	12
OU â€œDimitar Miladinovâ€	10
Elementary C Der Hana	9
Gozo College Xewkija Primary School	9
St. Monica School	8
University Of Toledo	8
OS Eugena Kumicica	8
St. Francis Primary School	7
St Thomas More College - Zejtun Primary B	7
The School of Nature, Environment	6
Srednja Å¡kola BraÄ‡a RadiÄ‡	6
Colegio de la Mesopotamia	5
Gozo College, Rabat Primary School	5
Gozo College, Middle School	5
Skola Za Medicinske Sestre Vrapce	5
Keelung Municipal Anle Senior High School	5
Sir Michelangelo Refalo Sixth Form	5
Moharimet School	4
Mingdao High School	4
Brener, Kfar Saba, elementary school	4
Sawda Um AlMumineen School (5-12)	4
Ben Gurion primary school	4
III. osnovna skola Varazdin	4
The 45th Secondary Girls School at Makkah Al-Mukarramah	3
Hsin Tien Senior High School	3
Shree Swaminnarayan Academy	3
Maison Bint Ahmed	3
Bennington Grade School	2
OS Antuna Mihanovica (HRHRBBIT)	2
UCAR Center for Science Education GLOBE v-School	2
St. Francis Primary School (GLIDMGF2)	2
EAN NAKOBA EAN RAFA	2
Istituto Comprensivo Perugia 3	2
Northfield School	1
West Carteret High School (GLID6IBL)	1
Gozo College Secondary School	1
Medicinska Skola Varazdin	1
SOU "Naum Naumovski-Borche"	1
Teba Secondary School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah	1
Perkins Local Schools	1
test_mobile school 1	1
OS Mahicno	1
test_school1	1
Peru GLOBE v-School	1
Thamare Primary School	1
The 9 th Secondary School at Madinah -	1
Santa Fe High School	1
Northwestern High School (USPARAVU)	1
The 1st Al-Mthulif Secondary Girls School at Al-Gonfutha	1
Kalispell Middle School	1
EBENEZER AFRICAN CHURCH PRIMARY SCHOOL 1	1
United States of America GLOBE v-School	1
Srinakarinwirot University Demonstration School	1
Welty Environmental Center	1
Asma bint aomis basic school	1
Amit, Reut	1
Jungil High School	1
IES Gredos	1
Neve Midbar-Abu Kweider	1
Altraif basic school	1

Urban Heat Island Effect-Surface – Continuing in March

2022-03-10T20:44:17Z

The Urban Heat Island Effect Intensive Observation Period (IOP) has started. The weather in the Northern Hemisphere has started to get warmer as meteorological spring started March 1. There was an amazing weather situation where I live this past Saturday. You can see in the images on the left that I drove about 20 miles (32 km) from my house in Michigan to the Oak Openings Park in Ohio. There is a warm front stalled across the area.

It was near 40 F (6 C) near my house but in the upper 60s (20 C) at the park. You can see in the right image that there was a warm front between my house and the park. The front did not move much from when I got to the park and left about 45 minutes later.

The weather and temperature can be amazing. As everyone keeps observing air temperature, surface temperature and clouds for the Urban Heat Island/Surface Temperature IOP, I wanted to remind everyone that we have been focusing on grass versus artificial turf on sports fields. I am working with Vasco Mantas of the University of Coimbra in Portugal and George Xian from USGS EROS Data Center in South Dakota to link the GLOBE UHIE campaign to their research study on the impacts of artificial turf and temperature. I have been working with my students at the University of Toledo in my three classes of Weather and Climate, Remote Sensing and Geospatial Technology to take surface temperature and air temperature observations on campus and also around Toledo creating a dense observation concentrations in Toledo, Ohio.

Dr. Farrokh Namjooyan is a researcher working with me at the University of Toledo. She put together the following data for the Urban Heat Island Effect IOP.

I wanted thank everyone who has taken observations this observation year so far. There have been 4,655 surface temperature observation around the world. 117 schools have taken participated in the surface temperature observations while 523 schools have taken air temperature observations with many of the schools having automated weather stations.

Here is some data from Ohio averaging all of the schools that took surface and air temperature for October through December 2021. What do you see in the data? Which is warmer on average, air temperature or surface temperature?

To me it looks like surface temperature is warmer than air temperature in early fall but then there are more days in December when surface temperature is warmer than air temperature.

I love to ice skate. Each winter I make an ice rink in my backyard. I put out plastic on a frame and fill it with water. Then, the cold weather freezes the water and I have an ice rink. Here I am on the rink holding my hockey stick. I use my infrared thermometer to measure the surface temperature of the surface to see if ice will form. What I find is that, at night especially when there are clear skies, that surface temperature can be colder than air temperature. The air temperature can be above freezing but ice can form.

More analysis shows that asphalt, in general, is warmer than grass. You can look at the data on the GLOBE website and see if data you collect matches this.

Please refer to our webpage for the IOP at:https://sites.google.com/view/uhieforstudents

On this webpage, there are instructions for taking the observations, research projects that students have completed and presented in the past, information about the turf versus grass project and my team.

And, I wanted to thank the schools who have participated by taking surface temperature observations.

Al-Habeel Secondary School For Girls At Al-gunfodah

University Of Toledo

Brazil GLOBE v-School

The 24th Seconadry Girls School at Makkah Al-Mukarramah

Ivano-Frankivsk City Environmental Station

OS Mahicno

King Khalid Secondary School at Al-Hofuf

The 97th Secondary Girls School at Jeddah

The 1st Secondary Girls School at Al-Gonfutha

OS Banija

Al-Ofous Secondary School at Al-Bahah

IES Eusebio Barreto

Medicinska Å¡kola Ante KuzmaniÄ‡a

Sankalp Senior Secondary Day Boarding High School

Main Street Intermediate School

2 Intermediate School Abu Arish At Jazan

OS Dubovac

The first Arqah Secondary school Al-riyadh

Nawan Secondary Girls School at Al-Makhwah

Greece GLOBE v-School

The 1st Secondary Girls School at Sabya

As-Siddiq Secondary School at Rejal Alma'a

Kaohsiung Municipal Cianjin Junior High School

Xrobb l-Ghagin

OS Dragojle Jarnevic

The 1st Secondary Girls School at Dhahran

Freeport High School

Alpena Elementary/Middle School

OOU Goce Delcev

SOU Bogdanci

Boston University School of Education GLOBE v-School

National Lo-Tung Senior High School

The 45th Secondary Girls School at Makkah Al-Mukarramah

The 20th Secondary Girls School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah

National Kinmen Senior High School

Osnovna Å¡kola Rugvica

The 9 th Secondary School at Madinah -

Taipei Municipal Wan Fang Senior High School(GLID3I86)

Asma bint aomis basic school

Ekonomska i trgovaÄka Å¡kola Dubrovnik

Graditeljska, prirodoslovna i rudarska Å¡kola

Crestwood High School

OS Valentin Klarin

OS Josip Pupacic

Hsin Tien Senior High School

St. Francis Primary School (GLIDMGF2)

Gozo College Xewkija Primary School

Hafsah bint sirin basic school

Srednja skola Petrinja

Perkins Local Schools

St. Patrick Catholic School

Community Roots Academy

Srednja Å¡kola BraÄ‡a RadiÄ‡

St.Michael School

The 18th Intermediate Girls School at Makkah Al-Mukarramah

The Affiliated Senior High school of NCU

II. osnovna skola Cakovec

OS Ivana Kukuljevica

OS Sime Budinica

New Jersey GLOBE v-School

Gozo College, Rabat Primary School

Maria Regina College Mosta Secondary School

SOU "Naum Naumovski-Borche"

St. Peter's Elementary School

Colegio de la Mesopotamia

Montverde Academy

Haripur Primary School

Gozo College Secondary School

Gozo College, Middle School

St Thomas More College - Zejtun Primary B

OS Zadarski otoci

Yahalom

Ben Gurion primary school

OS prof. Franje Viktora Signjara

Srednja Å¡kola ÄŒakovec

Sawda Um AlMumineen School (5-12)

Ekonomsko-birotehnicka i trgovacka skola Zadar

Colegio Ciudad Vieja (GLID2MH5)

Defiance Elementary School

Saint Andrew Catholic School

McKinley STEMM Academy

St. Francis Primary School

Navarre Elementary School (USOHQ4L6)

Watkins Mill High School

Gozo College, San Lawrenz Primary, aka The Friendly School

Hunkhapittayakom

West Carteret High School (GLID6IBL)

Science Club Huechulafquen (After School)

St. Peter's High School

University Of Alaska Fairbanks (USAKSWHS)

SOU Josif Josifovski

Geitonas School

Gimnazija Matija Mesic

Brazil Secondary School

Jungil High School

Mingdao High School

L2R

Dvora Omer

Millcreek West Unity Local Schools (Hilltop)

Keelung Municipal Anle Senior High School

Said bin nasser alkindi basic school

Skola Za Medicinske Sestre Vrapce

Escuela No. 46 SerafÃn Rivas

Jesup W. Scott High School

IS 223 - The Montauk School

Elementary C Der Hana

The name of the reporting school or other institution

Kalispell Middle School

Gvanim

Moharimet School

Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison

CollÃ¨ge Jules FERRY

Clay High School

Altraif basic school

The Affiliated High School of National Chung Hsing University

Artificial Turf, the AREN Project’s TerraROVER

2022-02-08T20:24:18Z

In the Toledo area, Dr. C and schools in the area focused on studying artificial turf versus grass soccer and football fields. Artificial turf was much warmer than natural grass. This is combining the GLOBE Urban Heat Island Field Study with research by Vasco Mantas from the University of Coimbra in Portugal and George Xian from the USGS Eros Data Center and the AREN Project with Andy Henry and Geoff Bland.

University of Toledo students using the AREN TerraROVER on the UT football field.

You can see that the artificial turf of the football field (called the Glass Bowl) and the soccer field are warmer than the grassy areas. In fact, you can see in the TerraROVER data that the concrete and asphalt near the fields was cooler. Surface temperature gathered by students in my classes using infrared thermometers, showed the same thing.

Surface temperatures taken at the University of Toledo using the GLOBE protocol. The artificial turf was about 28 C while the concrete and asphalt parking lots and grassy areas are near 18 C.

Data from the TerraROVER. You can see that the artificial turf is about 10 C warmer than the grass and parking lots surrounding it. If you look closely, the white parts of the football field are cooler than the green areas.

Information about the AREN Project can be found here.

https://www.globe.gov/web/aren-project

And, this project was funded by NASA through GLOBE Mission EARTH,

https://www.globe.gov/web/mission-earth

Impact of snow and shade from a tree on surface temperature

2020-12-11T04:53:21Z

It snowed at my house in Michigan last week, the first week of December 2020. I love snow and I really like to see how snow affects the surface temperature. Between 60 and 80 mm of snow was on the ground. I took surface temperature observations as part of the Urban Heat Island Student Research Campaign. I wanted to show what you could do by yourself at your house if you have an infrared thermometer.

My two sites are my backyard which is grass and the gravel driveway in the front of our house. The backyard has a line of Black Spruce trees just south of where I am standing in the picture. The trees cast shadows on part of the backyard. In this blog, I'll look at how surface temperature is affected by the snow, land cover and the shadow.

In this graph, you can see that the surface temperature in the sun, in general, was higher than the temperature in the shade. I marked where there was snow on the ground. Once the snow melted, the temperature went above freezing. On December 8, 2020, skies were very cloudy so the temperature of both areas was the same because there was no snow.

You can see that the driveway had higher temperatures than the grass. Snow melted first on the driveway as well. So, my conclusions from this study is that the tree shade, grass land cover and snow helped to keep the area cool.

I hope to continue to take surface temperature observations this week through January 1, 2021.

I also wanted to share what a remote learning school in North Carolina has done for the campaign. Linda Schmalbeck is the teacher at the North Carolina of Science and Math School. Since it is a remote learning school, she has students from all over the state. She has had all of her students take GLOBE observations from near where they live. They met at an arboretum on a Saturday where Linda gave the students infrared thermometers to use. They then used them at their houses. Below is a map of the observations across the state. The green dots represent a sampling location.

Dr. C

Urban Heat Island Student Research Campaign

2020-11-19T23:06:51Z

Even with the pandemic, participation the campaign has been good. Although the number of schools participating and the total number of observations was down from last year, it was still a nice number of each. So far this fall (Northern Hemisphere) spring (Southern Hemisphere) there have been over 3,500 observations from 135 sites (70 schools) across the world. Please see the list below. There are a number of schools in Saudi Arabia with over 100 observations. We also have observations from Brazil and an area of India where there are six new schools taking part in the urban heat island campaign. I’m glad to see observations from Malta (the islands of Malta and Gozo). My father-in-law is from Malta originally and moved to the US 65 years ago when he was a teenager.

I wanted to highlight Linda Schmalbeck and her students from the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. Her students are remote and all over the state of North Carolina. They came together at a park on Saturday and then each took surface temperature observations near where they live.

Students and teachers should do as much as they are able given precautions in their area. The state of Michigan in the US just went to 100% online for all high school students. My son, who is a senior, was going two days a week and doing online the rest of the week. Now, he is 100% online for the next three weeks.

Schools that have entered data between August 1 and November 19, 2020

School Name	Count
The first Arqah Secondary school Al-riyadh	522
Govt. Girls High School (GLIDE8NS)	288
Haripur Primary School	285
Brazil GLOBE v-School	279
The 24th Seconadry Girls School at Makkah Al-Mukarramah	217
Sankalp Senior Secondary Day Boarding High School	188
Ivano-Frankivsk City Environmental Station	149
Al-Habeel Secondary School For Girls At Al-gunfodah	129
IES Eusebio Barreto	111
King Khalid Secondary School at Al-Hofuf	109
Kaohsiung Municipal Cianjin Junior High School	103
As-Siddiq Secondary School at Rejal Alma'a	99
OS Banija	87
Nawan Secondary Girls School at Al-Makhwah	85
Perkins Local Schools	70
Binapani High School	65
The 45th Secondary Girls School at Makkah Al-Mukarramah	65
Osnovna Å¡kola Rugvica	62
æ–°åŒ—å¸‚ç«‹æ–°åŒ—é«˜ç´šä¸å¸	59
Nehru Nodal Ucha Bidyapitha	53
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Durham Campus	50
OS Dubovac	50
Alpena Elementary/Middle School	49
Jungil High School	49
National Kinmen Senior High School	48
Skola Za Medicinske Sestre Vrapce	48
Boston University School of Education GLOBE v-School	44
Medicinska Å¡kola Ante KuzmaniÄ‡a	33
OS Ivana Kukuljevica	29
PEACE Schools Network	26
Graditeljska prirodoslovna i rudarska Å¡kola	24
IES Gredos	23
Srednja skola Petrinja	23
National Lo-Tung Senior High School	20
Houjia Junior High School	19
OS Valentin Klarin	19
RIMULI HIGH SCHOOL RIMULI	19
Saint Andrew Catholic School	18
OS Sime Budinica	15
Kaohsiung Youchang Junior High School	13
Srednja Å¡kola BraÄ‡a RadiÄ‡	13
St. Patrick Catholic School	12
Gozo College Middle School	11
The 97th Secondary Girls School at Jeddah	11
Srisamrongchanupathum	10
Nongvangwittayakom	9
SciStarter Citizen Scientists LLC GLOBE v-School	9
Srednja Å¡kola ÄŒakovec	9
St.Michael School	9
Anuban Chiangmai	8
Greece GLOBE v-School	8
The University Of Toledo	8
Damrongratsongkroh (GLIDWCJB)	7
Netherlands GLOBE v-School	3
St. Peter's Elementary School	3
United States of America GLOBE v-School	3
Batat Intermediate Girls School at Al-Makhwah	2
Elayet feda basic school	2
IDEA Homeschool Fairbanks	2
Boleslaw Prus Primary School No. 1 in Gora	1
Garrett High School	1
Hamad Town Boys School	1
III. osnovna skola Varazdin	1
Khunkraiphitthayakom	1
Medicinska Skola Varazdin	1
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center GLOBE v-School	1
North Star Montessori Academy	1
OS Antuna Mihanovica (HRHRBBIT)	1
Philippine Science High School - Calabarzon Campus	1
Srednja Å¡kola Jastrebarsko	1

STEM for All Video Showcase GLOBE Related Videos

2020-05-06T19:03:38Z

GLOBE Mission EARTH has posted videos in the NSF funded STEM for All video showcase. The NASA funded project I lead that fuses GLOBE projects with NASA assets put a couple videos in. Our video highlights students who chose STEM careers. Please take some time this week, May 5-12, 2020, to watch the videos. Please make a comment or vote for your favorite video.

Here is our project: GLOBE Mission EARTH: Inspiring tomorrow’s STEM Professionals https://videohall.com/p/1762 (U. of Toledo)

Here are some related and GLOBE related videos.

Students connect through science at the GLOBE Symposia: https://videohall.com/p/1841 (Bourgeault, plus teachers & Partners)

Connecting students to Earth SySTEM through Mixed Realities https://videohall.com/p/1705 (John Moore)

A Community-based Approach to Engaging Students and Teachers https://videohall.com/p/1876 (Janelle Johnson)

Urban Heat Island Effect: December Wrap-up and Kick-off for March

2020-02-12T00:15:42Z

The GLOBE Urban Heat Island Student Research Campaign finished up the 2019-2020 campaign with observations from 254 sites in October with 6,688 surface temperature observations. In December, 4,248 observations were taken from 126 schools. Over 50% of the data was submitted in the last 2 weeks. This is a large increase from last year of about 150%. There are focus areas with many schools participating including the Great Lakes, Croatia, Saudi Arabia and Oman, and Taiwan. And, there are first time participants from Brazil, South Korea and India. The blog post in October had 586 views and the one in December has 152 views.

There is a lot of data that could be used in student research projects. There are focus areas in the Great Lakes, Croatia, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. Is the urban heat island effect occurring in these areas? Below is a time series comparing a rural school (Shumate Middle School) and urban (Crestwood High School).

This is a link to a nice activity developed by NASA Langley, a Story Map.

https://nasa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=44b9c8738f0e47e68d9e8ae2c530ed08

Urban Heat Island Effect: take observations in December

2019-12-03T17:36:53Z

Do you want to learn how to take surface temperature observations? The students at the Toledo Public School Natural Science Technology Center (NSTC) show how it can be done in this short video.

https://www.facebook.com/globemissionearth/videos/2581539525466417/

December is the second month of Urban Heat Island Effect Research Campaign. Take as many observations in the month of December as you can. Take observations from two different sites such as asphalt, concrete, grass or shrubs. There was great participation since October. Surface temperature observations were taken at over 200 sites around the world. There are focus areas with many schools participating including the Great Lakes, Croatia, Saudi Arabia and Oman, and Taiwan. And, there are first time participants from Brazil, South Korea and India.

Unlike much of the year when urban heat island effect leads to increased energy consumption in cities to cool buildings, during the winter, urban heat island can lead to less energy consumption in urban areas versus rural areas. Urban areas can be warmer than rural areas therefore, when it is cold outside in the winter, houses may need to be heated less. This year, many of the locations that participate in the GLOBE Urban Heat Island Campaign have snow on the ground. Below is a map showing the snow cover in Norther America and Europe. Parts of the northeastern US, Great Lakes and eastern Europe have significant snow cover. The question that we can answer with the GLOBE surface temperature observations is how snow cover will affect the temperature.

Keep taking surface temperature observations. It will be great to have more data to study the impact of the built environment.

Dr. C

Kicking off Urban Heat Island Effect campaign

2019-10-03T15:45:06Z

We are kicking off the Urban Heat Island Effect campaign today with a heat wave in the eastern United States. Many record temperatures were broken today with highs reaching 32 to 35 C. 53 sites around the world entered data already today, October 1, 2019. You can see that most of the observations were in places of the world where it has been pretty warm. The coolest observation came from Alaska.

My students, Shefa and Ahmad, took surface temperature observations of a grassy field in front of my building at the University of Toledo and then of the parking lot behind the building. Both surfaces were warm because it was a hot day today with a high of 33 C. I encourage all students to take observations of at least 2 cover types on the same day and about the same time.

You can see that Ahmad is pointing the infrared thermometer down, pull the button, and then read the value. We would like you to take 9 observations in each homogeneous area. Students can take less observations A homogeneous area is one that has the same cover type for observations. We hope that students take their observations and make them into a research project.

Students could look at air temperature data from GIS mapping. There are more and more schools who are putting up weather stations so that weather is monitored through GLOBE 24/7. For a Urban Heat Island Effect research project a student can look at the difference in temperature between school locations and see which ones are hottest.

I hope we have a great campaign. The autumnal equinox just occurred and we are headed toward winter. Dr. C

Urban Heat Island Effect Campaign: October Wrap-up and December Kick-off

2018-11-30T05:07:57Z

The Urban Heat Island Effect Campaign in October was the best start to the campaign that GLOBE has ever had. 89 schools entered surface temperature data. Some schools like Huntington High School in West Virginia entered a lot of observations. Thanks Mr. Sharpe. A list of the number of observations each school took are listed below. Now that so many observations have been taken, students can do research using the data. There are lots of research questions that students can ask and then answer with this data. The students in my Weather and Climate class are looking at various questions related to the urban heat island effect.

You can see a wrap-up video I made for the UHIE Campaign here, https://youtu.be/S3lXnBTNhp0

Here are some reminders. Please be sure that the students put in local time if that is what they are using or universal time if that is what they are using. Both should be put in as a 24 hour clock. One of the most common mistakes in the data base is students putting a time of 2:00 for 2 pm local time when they should put in 14 local time.

Also, please try to have your students take observations of 2 sites with different cover types. I like to have the students observe grass and then a paved area like concrete or asphalt. This way, the students can see the difference right away.

You can see that there were clusters of observations. There were a concentration of schools in the eastern United States, Croatia, the Middle East and Southeastern Asia.

Here are some close-ups of those regions so you can see the schools involved.

I've been asked by a NASA official to look at how snow affects and is affected by the Urban Heat Island Effect. This looks like a good year to do that study in the United States. There is much more snow that at this time last year. There are few things to remember when taking snow observations with your surface temperature observations. Please take a snow depth observation with each of your surface temperature observations. You should record it in millimeters. If there is less than 10 mm of snow on the ground, you should report a T for Trace.

Why is snow so interesting? Well, it changes the albedo of the surface. During the day, snow reflects sunlight. At night, snow insulates the ground so that the air temperature can get much lower. Thermal radiation is emitted to space cooling the surface.

Happy GLOBE observing.

Dr. C

School Name	Count
Huntington High School	152
Perkins Local Schools	119
Shumate Middle School	75
The University Of Toledo	74
Saint Andrew Catholic School	74
Dove Science Academy	60
Medicinska Skola Varazdin	56
Ottawa Hills Jr/Sr High School	53
King Khalid Secondary School at Al-Hofuf	52
Boston University School of Education GLOBE v-School	51
IES Eusebio Barreto	51
Kaohsiung Municipal Cianjin Junior High School	51
OS Hugo Badalic	50
Main Street Intermediate School	48
As-Siddiq Secondary School at Rejal Alma'a	48
Hamzah Bin Abdulmutalib Secondary School at Jeddah	46
Liou-Guei Senior High School	40
National Kinmen Senior High School	40
æ–°åŒ—å¸‚ç«‹æ–°åŒ—é«˜ç´šä¸å¸	39
Waite High School	35
OS Ivana Kukuljevica	35
Jackman Road Elementary	34
Asma bint aomis basic school	34
Houjia Junior High School	33
New York GLOBE v-School	29
OS Dubovac	27
PEACE Schools Network	24
Skola Za Medicinske Sestre Vrapce	22
New Taipei Municipal Jin-Shan High School	19
Srednja Å¡kola BraÄ‡a RadiÄ‡	18
Ibri basic School	18
Crestwood High School	17
OS Ljubo Babic	16
OS Valentin Klarin	16
Instituto Federal de EducaÃ§Ã£o CiÃªncia e Tecnologia de BrasÃlia	16
Northern Shores Elementary School	15
Clay High School	14
Said bin nasser alkindi basic school	14
Navarre Elementary School (USOHQ4L6)	13
Faulkton Area School District	11
Flint Hill Elementary	10
Alanjal Intermediate Girls School At Alhufof	9
OS Sime Budinica	8
Licking Heights West	8
Mescalero Apache School	8
III. osnovna skola Varazdin	8
Wyomissing Area Jr./Sr. High School	8
Ekonomsko-birotehnicka i trgovacka skola	7
State University of New York at Fredonia	7
Al-Matan Intermediate and Secondary Girls School at Sabya	6
Al Mustakbal Junior High School	6
The 19th Secondary Girls School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah	6
Monroe County Education Center	5
McKinley STEMM Academy	5
Al Fisaliah Gifted School at Jeddah	5
National Taichung Girlsâ€™ Senior High School	5
Srednja Å¡kola ÄŒakovec	5
St. Peter Elementary School	5
Mountain View School (GLIDPXRW)	4
Pickett Elementary School	4
OS Mahicno	4
Sintanjin middle school	4
Benjamin Franklin Science Corner	3
Boleslaw Prus Primary School No. 1 in Gora	3
National Lo-Tung Senior High School	3
The 24th Seconadry Girls School at Makkah Al-Mukarramah	3
The Affiliated Senior High school of NCU	3
Colorado STEM Academy	2
I.E. 6030 Victor Andres Belaunde Diez Canseco - Punta Hermosa	2
Metropolitan State University of Denver GLOBE v-School	2
Michigan GLOBE v-School	2
The 20th Secondary Girls School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah	2
Al Faruk Elementary School	1
Anthony Carnevale Elementary School (GLID75OX)	1
Community College of Denver	1
Ekonomska i trgovaÄka Å¡kola Dubrovnik	1
Elementary C Der Hana	1
Feng-Shan senior high school	1
Israel GLOBE v-School	1
Kaohsiung Youchang Junior High School	1
Keelung Municipal Anle Senior High School	1
Saud bin azzan basic school	1
Science Club Huechulafquen (After School)	1
Shiqaiq Intermediate Girls School at Sabya	1
The 20th Secondary Girls School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah	1
The 25th Secondary Girls School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah	1
The Affiliated High School of National Chung Hsing University	1
Yanuch A	1

Kick Off of Urban Heat Island Effect/Surface Temperature Campaign

2018-09-20T03:50:03Z

It is here! The Urban Heat Island Effect/Surface Temperature Campaign for 2018-2019 will start October 1. I am so excited to be kicking off a new campaign. There are so many more schools and students participating that it is very exciting.

The Urban Heat Island is a very current and timely research topic to study. This past summer there were heat waves in Japan, the United Kingdom and Europe as well as parts of the United States. Heat waves are now the natural disasters causing the most deaths in the United States. Urban Heat Island Effect makes cities even warmer than surrounding areas exacerbating the impacts from heat waves. On a lighter note, Ireland was very hot this summer when the GLOBE's Learning Expedition (GLE) was there in July. All of us who went learned quickly that Ireland does not have air conditioning in most buildings.

We are going to have a series of webinars to support the Urban Heat Island campaign. The first one is next Wednesday, September 26, 2018 at 8 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). Go to this link to register for the webinar, https://tinyurl.com/2018GMEWebinar1

We ask teachers and students to take observations on at least five days during October and try to take the temperature of at least two different cover types. They could be grass or a parking lot (asphalt or concrete), bare ground, etc. It is best if you can have your students develop a research question or questions that they would be interested in answering.

This summer, I spent a day in Chicago, Illinois and worked with Gitte Venicx who works for a non-profit called EarthWatch. Gitte organized an program this summer for international employees of IBM. The employees were suppose to do an environmental program on the weekends. They took surface temperature and cloud observations in the center of Chicago. An image of Chicago and the observations they took are in the figure below. One of the interesting things they looked at was how the shadows from the tall buildings affected the temperature.

What we found was the the grassy areas were cooler than the paved areas. But, we found that the grassy areas were similar temperatures to the nearby shaded paved areas.

This year I would like to encourage more students to do Projects on the Urban Heat Island Effect. There have been some in the past. Here are two that were done by students from Akron, Ohio.

One way you can do a project is to find a school near you that is either a rural school if you are in an urban one or an urban school if you are in a rural one. You can compare the observations.

Okay, let's take some surface temperature and cloud observations!

Dr. C

Wrap-up of Urban Heat Island/Surface Temperature March Campaign

2018-05-01T18:49:45Z

This has been a great year for the Urban Heat Island/Surface Temperature Student Research Campaign. More schools and more students have participated than ever before. I posted a 7 minute "Thank You" video here on https://youtu.be/QPfmAbMrwE4 Youtube. Urban Heat Island is a growing issue worldwide. More than 50% of the population of the world lives in urban areas. Much of this growth has been in developing. I went to research presentations about UHI at the American Association of Geography (AAG) meeting in New Orleans this week. There were many talks about UHI and using satellite imagery to observe it. Student land surface temperature observations made by you can help in studying UHI. The figure below shows one researchers estimation of the impact of the Urban Heat Island effect on aresa of the world (Cui et al. 2016).

I will use some terminology that my GLOBE friend Markus Eugster from Switzerland uses. The warmth of spring has started to be felt in the Northern Hemisphere although in the eastern United States the warmth has been slow to come.

You can see in the maps below that the temperatures in much of the Northern Hemisphere was much colder on March 1, 2018 than on March 26, 2018. On the image, the student data is overlaid with surface temperature derived from the MODIS sensor. You can see the warmer temperatures in the United States, Croatia, Saudia Arabia and Thailand. I think it is really impressive.

March 1, 2018

March 26, 2018

Below is a close-up of Croaita. You can see how closely the satellite imagery and the in situ (that's a fancy word for observations taken by hand) observations match.

Lastly, we can see the urban heat island effect around Toledo just looking at the difference in temperature between within Toledo (urban) with higher temperatures shown in yellow and outside Toledo (rural) with cooler temperatures represented by blue.

Schools that entered data during March are - with a total of 818 observations.

School Name	Data Count
Ashura Secondary School at Riyadh	4
As-Siddiq Secondary School at Rejal Alma'a	31
AT-Tahawy High School at Al-Hofuf	10
Benjamin Franklin Science Corner	5
Boleslaw Prus Primary School No. 1 in Gora	35
Chartiers-Houston Jr./Sr. High School	26
Chia-Yi Girls senior high school	29
Coll√®ge J.Pr√©vert	3
Crestwood High School	33
Curious-on-Hudson	1
Dove Science Academy	93
East Dakota Water Development District	7
Faulkton Area School District	3
Freeport High School	19
Haima basic school	2
Houjia Junior High School	30
Ibri basic School	5
IES Eusebio Barreto	31
III. osnovna skola Varazdin	1
Jackman Road Elementary	78
John C. Stennis Space Center - NASA	1
Kaohsiung Municipal Cianjin Junior High School	31
Kg/ Tholangamuwa CC	1
Lake High School (GLIDMRO6)	26
Licking Heights West	4
Liou-Guei Senior High School	32
Main Street Intermediate School	43
Manarat Intermediate School at Madinah AL-Monawarah	6
Medicinska Skola Varazdin	13
Mountain View School (GLIDPXRW)	12
National Kinmen Senior High School	21
Oscar A. Carlson High School	6
OS Hugo Badalic	1
OS Ivana Kukuljevica	29
Osnovna skola grofa Janka Draskovica	7
OS prof. Franje Viktora Signjara	2
OS Sime Budinica	3
OS Zadarski otoci	1
Paget Primary School	3
PEACE Schools Network	21
Pickett Elementary School	1
Reynolds Elementary School	1
SciStarter Citizen Scientists LLC GLOBE v-School	1
Shiqaiq Intermediate Girls School at Sabya	38
Shumate Middle School	39
Skola Za Medicinske Sestre Vrapce	25
South Dakota Discovery Center (Data Entry)	1
Srednja ≈°kola Braƒáa Radiƒá	2
Srednja skola Marka Marulica	6
Srednja skola Petrinja	1
Srednja skola Vela Luka	2
Srednja strukovna ≈°kola Kralja Zvonimira Knin	7
St. Peter Elementary School	3
The 128 Intermediate Gifted Girls School at Jeddah	1
The 19th Secondary Girls School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah	15
The 24th Seconadry Girls School at Makkah Al-Mukarramah	21
The Affiliated Senior High school of NCU	1
The University Of Toledo	18
Umm Klthoom bint Uqba	2
Waite High School	10
Webster Avenue Elementary School (GLIDP86R)	3
Êñ∞ÂåóÂ∏ÇÁ´ãÊñ∞ÂåóÈ´òÁ¥ö‰∏≠Â≠∏	31

Urban Heat Island Observations – Please take observations in March

2018-03-06T17:36:26Z

Spring is starting to spring in some parts of the Northern Hemisphere but not quite yet in others. The March observations period for the Urban Heat Island/Surface Temperature Student Research Campaign has started. Please take surface temperature observations in March to help out with the campaign. If you can, please take observations from two sites so you can compare the temperatures for them. One approach is to take observations from a grassy area and an asphalt area to compare.

Just a quick look at surface temperature data on the GLOBE visualization page shows the cold weather that is affecting Europe compared to the Eastern United States (Figure 1). The cold weather in Europe was called the “Beast from the East” by many news outlets. The reason for that is that the cold winds were blowing from Siberia in the east.

Figure 1. GLOBE surface temperature observation from Feb. 27, 2018.

This figure on http://windy.com shows why it is so cold in Europe. A high pressure system is centered over Scandinavia. With the winds going clockwise around the high, the winds are from the east. Also, there is a low pressure system, also known as a mid-latitude cyclone, off the coast of France that is bringing moisture over Great Britain. Parts of Great Britain may get 50 cm of snow.

Figure 2. Isobars and temperature from Windy.com. Note the high (H) over Scandinavia and low pressure south of Ireland.

Here are observations from December. 64 schools participated with over a 1000 observations.

School Name Data Count

Al duqom basic school 1

Al Fisaliah Gifted School at Jeddah 31

Ali bin Abi Talib Secondary School at Jeddah 12

Al-Matan Intermediate and Secondary Girls School at Sabya 5

Ammar Bin Yasir basic school 3

As-Siddiq Secondary School at Rejal Alma'a 31

Brazil Secondary School 21

Brookfield Middle School 38

Burapha University 1

Chartiers-Houston Jr./Sr. High School 30

Chia-Yi Girls senior high school 30

Crestwood High School 1

Dove Science Academy 39

Eagle Community School 2

East Dakota Water Development District 5

Faulkton Area School District 10

Flint Hill Elementary 8

Freeport High School 32

Gimnasio Kitiou 30

Haima basic school 3

Houjia Junior High School 21

Huntington High School (USWVBCAM) 119

Ibri basic School 3

IES Eusebio Barreto 24

III. osnovna skola Varazdin 13

Jackman Road Elementary 4

Ket'acik And Aapalluk Memorial School 2

Kg/ Tholangamuwa CC 31

Lake High School (GLIDMRO6) 11

Lakewood Catholic Academy 44

Larchmont Elementary 1

Licking Heights West 5

Liou-Guei Senior High School 33

Main Street Intermediate School 22

Medicinska Skola Varazdin 34

Melvin H. Kreps Middle School 5

Montague Elementary School 6

Mountain View School (GLIDPXRW) 8

National Kinmen Senior High School 13

National Magong High School 2

New Taipei Municipal Jin-Shan High School 14

OÅ Ivana FilipoviÄ‡a Osijek 42

OS Ivana Kukuljevica 31

OS Sime Budinica 1

PEACE Schools Network 23

Prince of Songkla University Surat Thani Campus 1

Samad Basic School 3

Shiqaiq Intermediate Girls School at Sabya 2

Shumate Middle School 36

Skola Za Medicinske Sestre Vrapce 10

Srednja Å¡kola BraÄ‡a RadiÄ‡ 5

Srinakharinwirot University 1

Srisawatwittayakarn School Nan 1

The 19th Secondary Girls School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah 52

The 3rd Secondary Girls School at Bish 16

The Affiliated Senior High school of NCU 2

The Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology 3

The University Of Toledo 1

ubon ratchathani rajabhat university 1

University of Toledo GLOBE v-School 10

Waite High School 9

Walailak University 2

Webster Avenue Elementary School (GLIDP86R) 3

Zenska opca gimnazija Druzbe sestara milosrdnica s pravom javn. 27

Urban Heat Island Student Research Campaign Through December

2017-12-19T04:35:55Z

We are in the middle of our December observations for the Urban Heat Island Effect/Surface Temperature Field Campaign. 69 schools have entered 1323 observations. As developer of the surface temperature protocol I wanted to thank everyone who has taken observations. It is your data that will allow other students to create interesting research projects as well as providing a database for me and my students to conduct research. We have schools all over the world taking surface temperature observations to contribute to the campaign. I want to talk about problems some schools are having with their submitted data, the number of observations from each school, and a research project using GLOBE surface temperature observations presented at one of the largest scientific conferences in the world. Lastly, I want to look at a little data and the difference between October and December.

Observation problems to address

There is a number of issues that I see in the data. Please check your data over to make sure that you and your students are taking observations correctly and putting them onto the GLOBE website.

1. Make sure that the students are entering the time in correctly as either local or universal time.

2. Check the latitude and longitude of the sites – there are some schools who used the wrong Hemisphere (eastern versus western). There are a couple of schools who put in the latitude and longitude within the ocean and we know that they aren’t in the ocean.

3. When entering your surface temperature data, please include one decimal place. The infrared thermometers should have observations that show one decimal place. Please include it.

4. Some schools are taking observations from more than one cover type and entering the data under one observation. If you are taking observations of grass and concrete, be sure to take at least 3 and preferably 9 observations of the grass and enter them on the GLOBE website. Then, use a different site and observation for the concrete.

Schools and Observations so far

Of note are observations from the United States, Croatia, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and Oman. But, it is great to have observations from all of the countries in GLOBE : Brazil, Sri Lanka, UAE, Israel, Japan, Trinidad and Tobago.

School Name Observations

Abu baker alsedik basic school 1

Al duqom basic school 3

Al-Fath Secondary School at Abha 1

Al Fisaliah Gifted School at Jeddah 93

Ali bin Abi Talib Secondary School at Jeddah 23

Ammar Bin Yasir basic school 3

Arlington Elementary 1

As-Siddiq Secondary School at Rejal Alma'a 78

Boston University v-School 2017 7

Bowling Green State University (USOHP793) 13

Brazil Secondary School 12

Chartiers-Houston Jr./Sr. High School 60

Chia-Yi Girls senior high school 78

Clay High School 8

Crestwood High School 20

Danbury Local School District 2

Dove Science Academy 75

East Dakota Water Development District 11

Escola Municipal Cear√° 2

Faulkton Area School District 8

Flint Hill Elementary 17

Freeport High School 24

Haima basic school 15

Haines School 1

Houjia Junior High School 54

Huntington High School (USWVBCAM) 1

IES Eusebio Barreto 69

III. osnovna skola Varazdin 8

Isham Elementary 1

Jackman Road Elementary 3

Ket'acik And Aapalluk Memorial School 10

Kg/ Tholangamuwa CC 2

Lake High School (GLIDMRO6) 7

Lakewood Catholic Academy 30

Larchmont Elementary 5

Licking Heights West 8

Liou-Guei Senior High School 21

Main Street Intermediate School 2

Melvin H. Kreps Middle School 6

Moamar Bin Rashed Intermediate School at Riyadh 1

Montague Elementary School 4

Mountain View School (GLIDPXRW) 22

National Kinmen Senior High School 1

National Lo-Tung Senior High School 12

National Taichung Girls‚Äô Senior High School 1

New Taipei Municipal Jin-Shan High School 29

Oscar A. Carlson High School 14

O≈† Ivana Filipoviƒáa Osijek 55

OS Ivana Kukuljevica 71

Osnovna skola grofa Janka Draskovica 32

OS Sime Budinica 11

OS Zadarski otoci 5

PEACE Schools Network 58

Reynolds Elementary School 1

Salah A-Din Elementary Bedouin School 1

Samad Basic School 7

SDSU Extension Pennington County 4-H 5

Shiqaiq Intermediate Girls School at Sabya 5

Shumate Middle School 37

Skola Za Medicinske Sestre Vrapce 21

Spring Creek Elementary (GLIDJSIF) 2

Srednja ≈°kola Braƒáa Radiƒá 60

The 25th Secondary Girls School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah 2

The Affiliated Senior High school of NCU 7

The University Of Toledo 37

University of Toledo GLOBE v-School 6

Waite High School 22

Webster Avenue Elementary School (GLIDP86R) 5

Wyomissing Area Jr./Sr. High School 6

Research Presentation

Lindsey Fagerstrom is an undergraduate student at Carthage College. She was a researcher at the University of Toledo last summer (2017). She presented a poster at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana last week. AGU is one of the largest science conferences in the world. I heard that 30,000 scientists were at the meeting. The research presented ranged from climate change to water pollution. GLOBE fits right in. Her project was titled "The Cabability of GLOBE Data to Correct for Atmospheric Differences in Land Surface Temperature. She derived a split-window equation to estimate surface temperature from the Landsat 8 satellite. Landsat 8 is an important satellite to study urban heat island effect.

Difference in surface temperature between October and December. You can see in the first image that the temperatures in the United States, Croatia and Saudi Arabia are pretty warm. On December 6, 2017, there are blues and even a purple indicating that the temperatures are cold. The only place that is about the same temperature in both months is Taiwan.

October Urban Heat Island Field Campaign Review

2017-12-03T14:27:42Z

The Urban Heat Island field campaign October version turned out to be a great success. Many schools took observations and entered them onto the GLOBE website. Remember, we are looking at the urban heat island in the seasons, October, December and March. Forty-three schools entered data in the month of October. If you haven't entered your data yet, please do soon. You can see on the map below that there were observations taken across the world. The size of the dot represents the total number of observations taken at the site. There has been great participation from Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Croatia and the United States. It is great to see observations from Brazil for the first time. There are several schools that took more than 20 observations. That is great. work. I put some graphs below that were made by Rebekka Apardian, a student at the University of Toledo working with me in the Department of Geography and Planning. You can see that grass is cooler than asphalt most of the time for Lake High School. For Shumate Middle School in Michigan, the pond is cooler than the sidewalk. You can see that the temperature of both has been decreasing over time this fall. Lastly, at Huntington High School, the albedo of concrete is making it more reflective leading to cooler temperatures.

School Number of Observations

Al Fisaliah Gifted School at Jeddah 29 observations

Al-Fath Secondary School at Abha 1 observation

Ali bin Abi Talib Secondary School at Jeddah 6 observations

Arlington Elementary 1 observation

As-Siddiq Secondary School at Rejal Alma’s 31 observations

Bowling Green State University (USOHP793) 7 observations

Chartiers-Houston Jr./Sr. High School 20 observations

Chia-Yi Girls senior high school 31 observations

Clay High School 5 observations

Crestwood High School 14 observations

Dove Science Academy 16 observations

Freeport High School 10 observations

Escola Municipal Ceará 2 observations

Houjia Junior High School 26 observations

Huntington High School (USWVBCAM) 36 observations across 6 sites

IES Eusebio Barreto 30 observations

Isham Elementary 1 observation

Ket'acik And Aapalluk Memorial School 3 observations

Lake High School (GLIDMRO6) 26 observations across 6 sites

Larchmont Elementary 1 observation

Licking Heights West 4 observations across 2 sites

Main Street Intermediate School 2 observations across 2 sites

Mountain View School (GLIDPXRW) 7 observations

National Lo-Tung Senior High School 23 observations

New Taipei Municipal Jin-Shan High School 5 observations

New York GLOBE v-School 10 observations across 2 sites

OŠ Ivana Filipovića, Osijek 17 observations

OS Ivana Kukuljevica 29 observations

OS Sime Budinica 5 observations

Oscar A. Carlson High School 6 observations across 2 sites

Osnovna skola grofa Janka Draskovica 14 observations

PEACE Schools Network 22 observations

Reynolds Elementary School 1 observation

Salah A-Din Elementary Bedouin School 1 observation

Shiqaiq Intermediate Girls School at Sabya 2 observations

Shumate Middle School 69 observations across 4 sites

Skola Za Medicinske Sestre Vrapce 15 observations

Spring Creek Elementary (GLIDJSIF) 2 observations

Srednja škola Braća Radić 11 observations

The University Of Toledo 24 observations across 3 sites

University of Toledo GLOBE v-School 5 observations across 5 sites

Waite High School 10 observations

Webster Avenue Elementary School (GLIDP86R)1 observation

Wyomissing Area Jr./Sr. High School 6 observations

Detroit and Alaska Students Connect Through GLOBE

2017-11-28T15:19:22Z

Having students collaborate on projects has been a great potential of the GLOBE Program. Through GLOBE Mission EARTH, students in Detroit, Michigan and Shageluk, Alaska interacted over the Internet. Their teachers worked together with GLOBE Mission EARTH to plan the exchange.

Students from Randy Smith Middle School, Fairbanks, Alaska, Carol Scott.

Thirkell Elementary School 5th grade, Detroit Michigan - Teacher Connie Atkisson

Students were asked to generate questions to ask each other before the web meeting. They found that their houses were very similar. The kids in Detroit talked about how they liked to dance. The kids in Alaska talked about hunting. The students showed each other where they were from in their states. It was funny that both groups used their hands to show where they live in their state.

Detroit, Michigan

Fairbanks, Alaska

It was obvious from the start that the students come from very different backgrounds. The students exchanged very interesting questions and answers. They asked what their homes were like in each location. They asked what they did for fun. What was obvious from the interaction was that kids are kids. They joked around and had fun talking with each other.

We hope that the students and teachers can talk again in the future.

Impacts of El Nino As Seen Through GLOBE Student Observations

2017-05-02T15:31:59Z

In the fall of 2016, the students in my Weather and Climate class, GEPL 4490/5490, at the University of Toledo developed projects based on El Nino. The students in class were give the task to look at GLOBE data from a part of the world in which El Nino has an effect. The students were also tasked to do research on El Nino and La Nina to see what it is.

The students looked at the following locations:

Taiwan 2015 – Nicole Jablonski, Bailey Hafner, Cortnee Halpin

Japan 1998 – Sean Smith,

Australia 1998 – Madhusanka Jayawardhana, Josh Coll, and Justin Maluchnik

As you can see in this document, in the winter, El Nino is expected to cause dry conditions in Australia, cool weather in Taiwan and Japan experiences warmer weather in an El Nino year.

During the 1997-1998 El Nino, the Boyne Island Environmental Education Centre in Australia experienced warmer temperatures than average from December to March. And precipitation was lower than average from February through April and then above average May and June.

Taiwan experienced below average rainfall in the spring. The Wu-Ling High School in Taiwan had rainfall on 34% of the days in 2015. The New Taipei Muni ipal Jin-Shan High School had 35% of days that recorded rain in 2015. Houjia Junior High School had rain on 41% of the days in 2016. Students found through research that Taiwan experienced less typhoons and higher temperatures in fall months. Temperatures were much higher than average with 37 C recorded on June 19, 2015 at Wu-Ling High School and Dan-Feng High School recorded 38.4 C on July 23, 2015.