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’ Senior High School 1
New Taipei Municipal Jin-Shan High School 29
Oscar A. Carlson High School 14
OŠ Ivana Filipovića 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 škola Braća Radić 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.
