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Our zodiac landed on a flat volcanic beach to an unexpected sight.   Gentoo penguins and Antarctic fur seals were everywhere!                  The abandoned buildings proved we were not the first people these animals shared a beach with.  Dozens of seals and penguins seemed unaware of the law, the Antarctic Treaty, to keep a minimum of 5 meters from humans.         I was first introduced to the International Antarctic Treaty when I asked my...

Not all raindrops are created equal. The size of falling raindrops depends on several factors, including where the cloud producing the drops is located on the globe and where the drops originate in the cloud. For the first time, scientists have three-dimensional snapshots of raindrops and snowflakes around the world from space, thanks to the joint NASA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. With the new global data on raindrop and snowflake sizes this mission provides, scientists can improve rainfall estimates from satellite data and in...

  Volcanoes, a steamy lagoon, abandoned buildings, abundant wildlife: my first sight of Antarctica. This is a deception of my prediction of Antarctica, which is quite fitting for the name of our first landing:  Deception Island.    The first documented people, sealers in the 1800’s, were deceived as they sailed through the entrance point, Neptune’s Bellow.  They thought they’d reach open sea, but were instead encased in this horseshoe-shaped island.    The very first Antarctic fur seal sighting will stick in my mind forever. ...

Tomorrow I will bridge to the LA Zoo at least by using their handouts with data capture on our campus. I am setting up by research teams by tables by teacher classroom.  They love their recorders and soon will add taking the room temperature into their own research area collected by investigative team/table 1-5.  They will be exploring predictions, measurements, fractions, parts, wholes and sums or averages, maps, map making and breathing like the lungs of the planet while we learn words like canopy, bionome, humus, serpentine to describe maps and reading symbols, signs, and...

The freezing and thawing of our planet's soil can make a big impact on our climate. Check out the blog below to see just how important this is. SMAP’s focus also includes measurements of freeze/thaw, which tells us whether the land surface is frozen or thawed in areas north of 45-degree north latitude. This is very important to know, because when the vegetation is frozen there is minimal exchange of gasses (CO2 primarily) between the vegetation and the atmosphere. It’s as if the vegetation were in a state of hibernation. This changes however, when spring begins and temperature rises...