The month of December features the Surface Temperature Field Campaign. To recognize this exciting event, we are featuring Dr. Kevin Czajkowski, the scientist behind the campaign. This post is a repost from his blog.
The GLOBE surface temperature field campaign started this week with some record warm temperatures in the United States. Students in much of the United States enjoyed short sleeve weather for several days.
Schools have started to post observations on the GLOBE website. The GLOBE website has been changed dramatically over the last year. The GLOBE Program Office will be adding all teachers in a bulk transfer from the old database in the near future. Many teachers have also signed up on the GLOBE webpage and the help desk has set them up so they can enter data. The help desk has been doing a great job managing everyone.
Here are the schools that have posted observations so far.
Burlington County Institute Of Technology, New Jersey
West Union High School, Ohio
Birchwood School, Ohio – Hi Mrs. Brown.
Lakewood Catholic Academy, Ohio – Great that you got on Mrs. McGuire
Roswell-Kent Middle School, Ohio – Hi Mr. Frantz.
Brazil School, Brazil
Main Street School, Norwalk, Ohio – Hi Mrs. Burns.
The Morton Arboretum Youth Education Department, Illinois
This is a map from the GLOBE website that shows the schools that entered surface temperature data so far on Dec. 3, 2012. Please try to have your students get your data online as soon as possible so we can trouble shoot any problems.
- Screen shot of Schools that have entered surface temperature data as of 6 December 2012
As many of you know, I love snow. I love to ski and ice skate and sled. So far this winter has been a dud. There hasn’t been a lot of snow. Last winter was so warm, there was very little snow as well. As you can see in the attached figure, there is very little snow today in the lower 48 of the United States. That is the part of the United States that does not include Hawaii and Alaska. A storm recently laid down snow in Europe. The weather pattern is going to change in North America and bring the cold air from Alaska and northern Canada into the lower 48.
Snow and ice charts showing North America, Europe and Asia
Seasons and Biomes Frost Tube
I have taken frost tube observations for the Seasons and Biomes GLOBE project for the past 3 years. I tried to take an observation this morning only to find that the tube had broken and all of the water drained out. I wonder if the plastic had gotten brittle and when it froze it broken when the ice expanded. I’ll have to fix it this weekend before consistently cold temperatures arrive next week.
Dr. Czajkowski's son holding the frost tube before it was placed in the ground
I hope to see your data soon.
