Community Blogs

Community Blogs
 

Included below is a feed of the latest blog posts created by the GLOBE Community. To view a tutorial on how you can create a blog click here 

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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 expedition leaders if I could analyze water...

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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...

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  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.  I sat 5 meters...

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By Bo Lebo, posted 29.03.16 20:46

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 new...

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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 above...

Узнать больше О SMAP Scientist Blog: Dr. Erika Podest, SMAP Scientist, Explains how SMAP scientists use the freeze/thaw product to study the carbon cycle! »

Posted in: Field Campaigns: SMAP Primary Audience: Trainers Teachers Students Partners Scientists Alumni Country Coordinators
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By Laura Kubiak, posted 28.03.16 23:03

Greetings from Ushuaia, Argentina South America - the southernmost city on our amazing planet!  Hello, I’m Laura Schetter a GLOBE teacher, from Holland, Ohio, USA.  This city is the site we will embark on the Ocean Endeavor ship to reach Antarctica.  From the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, I will be collecting hydrosphere and atmospheric data for GLOBE.  Additionally, I will enter “water stories”  - accounts of interactions with water for the H2you Project (h2youproject.com).  This International Antarctic Expedition is with Robert Swan and his 2041...

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We are just about one month into the El Niño Field Campaign and we have many schools that have gone above and beyond expectations. Teacher, Jeff Bouwman, at Shumate Middle School in Michigan, has taken his student science to the next level. By maximizing his classroom space to using the great outdoors to do great science, #GettingScienceDone is setting the bar high for student GLOBE measurements. Students from the Medford Memorial Middle School in New Jersey, and teacher, Vicky Gorman, have been collecting samples well before the campaign began. From getting their hands dirty in the soil...

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We are pleased to welcome guest blogger Jacob Spivey. Jacob is a senior undergraduate in Meteorology with a minor in Climatology at Penn State University. Fascinated by weather extremes as he was growing up, today he looks at possible relationships between extreme weather and climate change. Within the past few years, he has also begun looking at how these subjects are communicated to the general public, a process which he has started doing himself in his online blog, Weatherbolt. Ask someone what they think of when they hear about climate change, and you might get a few...

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"The Atlanta Science Festival is an annual public celebration of local science and technology. From March 19-26, 2016, curious people of all ages will explore the science and technology in our region and see how science is connected to all parts of our lives in 100 engaging events, including hands-on activities, facility tours, presentations, and performances throughout the metro Atlanta region." ---http://atlantasciencefestival.org/ On Saturday, March 19, there was a GLOBE/SMAP Training Workshops at the Captain Planet Foundation. Participants learned how to take soil moisture...

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Posted in: Field Campaigns: SMAP Primary Audience: Trainers Teachers Students Partners Scientists Alumni Country Coordinators

Want to hear about this in their own words? Watch the recording of Webinar #3

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Dramatic images show El Niño beginning to rescue California from its drought! As you may know, the state of California has been facing drought conditions for some time now. Over the last few months, the El Niño phenomenon has brought much needed precipitation to the drought-stricken state. Click HERE to read the full story and see the evidential images.

Узнать больше О El Niño in the News : Dramatic images show El Niño beginning to rescue California from its drought! »

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The SMAP Mission satellite launched on 31-January 2015 from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.  Check out the video below to watch it take off!  

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Posted in: Field Campaigns: SMAP Primary Audience: Trainers Teachers Students Partners Scientists Alumni Country Coordinators

Check out how CNES and NASA scientists are using GLOBE protocols to study El Niño During the Fall 2015 American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference, scientist from Centre National D’Etudes Spatial (CNES) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) came together to present findings on how CNES and NASA are using GLOBE protocols to study El Niño. GLOBE partner and CNES scientist Danielle DeStaerke and NASA scientist Margaret Srinivasan used the Atmosphere/Climate, Hydrology, Land Cover/Biology and Phenology protocols to study impacts of El Niño. Finding more about their...

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How do SMAP Scientists Use GLOBE Data (Part II)? Data Analysis and Blog by Dr. Erika Podest, SMAP Scientist In order to start using GLOBE soil moisture data we need at least 15 measurements collected on days when SMAP flew overhead. The Varazdin School is an example of such and the chart below is a comparison between their data and SMAP soil moisture at 36 km2 spatial resolution. Figure 2: Comparison between SMAP and GLOBE soil moisture from Varazdin school in Croatia. There are several things to note in Fig. 2. First, GLOBE measurements collected early on did not match those of SMAP...

Узнать больше О Part II of SMAP Scientist Blog: How do SMAP Scientists Use GLOBE Data? »

Posted in: Field Campaigns: SMAP Primary Audience: Trainers Teachers Students Partners Scientists Alumni Country Coordinators

How do SMAP Scientists Use GLOBE Data (Part I)? Data Analysis and Blog by Dr. Erika Podest, SMAP Scientist SMAP has been collecting soil moisture measurements since mid-April 2015, which are freely available, online through the National Snow and Ice Data Archive Center (NSIDC): https://nsidc.org/data/smap Of utmost importance is to have an assessment of the quality of the data, which is why there is a SMAP calibration/validation group. Its purpose is to determine the accuracy of the measurements and whether there are any biases. In order to calibrate and validate the SMAP data, there are...

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Posted in: Field Campaigns: SMAP Investigation Areas: Pedosphere (Soil) » Soil Moisture - SMAP Block Pattern Primary Audience: Trainers Teachers Students Partners Scientists Country Coordinators Alumni

While your students continue to collect data for the El Niño Field Campaign, think about how you can have your students interpret the data they are collecting and expand upon its use. From science fair projects to student research projects to El Niño (ENSO) Tales & Stories (see below for more details), your students can come up with great ways to use the data they are collecting to tell a story of how El Niño is affecting local environments to having global impacts. Below is the El Niño Field Campaign Student Scaffold. This is the step-by-step process envisioned by the El Niño Team and...

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Fenómeno El Niño: 8 niños mueren en Piura por altas temperaturas El Niño : 8 children die in Peru by high temperatures It seems the effects of the El Niño phenomena has cause the death of eight children due to heat stroke.  Click HERE to see the original story, in Spanish. Below is the entire article translated into English. _________________ The high temperatures in northern Peru due to El Niño have killed at least eight children as a result of heat stroke, the regional director of Health of the Piura region, Jesus Juarez said. Speaking to Canal N. Juarez said a tour of the...

Узнать больше О El Niño in the News : 8 children die in Northern Peru due to high temperatures! »

Posted in: Primary Audience: Trainers Teachers Students Partners Scientists Alumni Country Coordinators

Check out this diagram from the NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, showing some of the interesting anomalies and events for January 2016. If you visit their website, you can look at similar charts for other recent months, or annual summaries such as the one below, for 2015.

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Did you know that soil moisture plays a vital role in human health? Those nasty little critters called mosquitoes love warm, wet soil, and can carry extremely dangerous viruses and diseases. We also can use SMAP soil moisture data to assist famine early warning systems. Improved seasonal soil moisture forecasts using SMAP data will directly benefit famine early warning systems particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where hunger remains a major human health factor and the population harvests its food from rain-fed agriculture in highly monsoonal (seasonal) conditions. In...

Узнать больше О Soil Moisture and Human Health »

Posted in: Field Campaigns: SMAP Investigation Areas: Pedosphere (Soil) » Soil Moisture - SMAP Block Pattern Pedosphere (Soil) Primary Audience: Trainers Teachers Students Partners Scientists Alumni Country Coordinators

See  https://www.facebook.com/groups/602168936587444/  

Узнать больше О TAHMO - GLOBE, Africa-Idaho, Oregon »

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By Brian Andrew Campbell, posted 01.02.16 17:32

The NASA SMAP satellite took off for space on January 31, 2015 to study our planet's soil moisture and freeze/thaw state. Once in space, the satellite had to go through a prescribed series of steps to ensure that the spacecraft was functioning and all its instruments and components on-board were working properly. This took several months. In mid-April 2015, NASA starting receiving its first soil moisture measurements from SMAP's combined high resolution radar and its high accuracy radiometer. The combination of this data produced a data resolution of approximately 8km. Unfortunately,...

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Posted in: Field Campaigns: SMAP Investigation Areas: Pedosphere (Soil) » Soil Moisture - SMAP Block Pattern Pedosphere (Soil) Primary Audience: Trainers Teachers Students Partners Scientists Alumni Country Coordinators
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By Matt Gilmore, posted 29.01.16 14:57

The next GLOBE training will occur at the University of North Dakota on Monday 8 August and Tuesday 9 August 2016, with online components beginning Friday 5 August. Trainers will be Dr. Laura Munski of the Dakota Science Center and Dr. Matt Gilmore of Atmospheric Sciences. New this year, teachers will watch several introductory online videos and complete several hours of e-training with quiz questions - totaling 3 hours of online instruction. Invited again this year are pre-service teachers (e.g., students at UND or Mayville State University)...

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Why should we study mosquitos in our area? By Mullica Jaroensutasinee, Krisanadej Jaroensutasinee, Walailak University Rebecca Boger, Brooklyn College and Elena Sparrow, UAF Before we try to answer this, we should ask ourselves about how much do we know about them? For example, how many mosquito species present in our area? Would they carry some diseases? Where are their main breeding sites? Would they prefer to bite kids than adults and elderly? What time of year? What time of day would they most active (biting us)? Let us give you some example on mosquitos that are main vector for...

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Posted in: GLOBE Working Groups: Science Working Group

There are many application for SMAP soil moisture satellite data. Understanding drought risk is vital to the health of the planet and to the lives of potentially billions of people around the world. Soil moisture strongly affects plant growth and hence agricultural productivity, especially during conditions of water shortage and drought. Currently, there is no global in situ network for soil moisture monitoring. Global estimates of soil moisture and plant water stress must be derived from models. These model predictions (and hence drought monitoring) can be greatly enhanced through...

Узнать больше О HOW DOES SMAP SOIL MOISTURE DATA HELP US UNDERSTAND AND PREDICTS FLOODS AND DROUGHTS? »

Posted in: Field Campaigns: SMAP GLOBE Science Topics: Earth System Science Investigation Areas: Pedosphere (Soil) » Soil Moisture - SMAP Block Pattern Pedosphere (Soil) Primary Audience: Teachers Trainers Students Partners Scientists Alumni Country Coordinators

Thai Coral Reef and Climate Change Assoc. Prof. Krisanadej Jaroensutasinee, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mullica Jaroensutasinee, Centre of Excellence for Ecoinformatics, Walailak University, Thailand Everybody loves to spend their vacation snorkling or diving, seeing coral reef, reef fish and other marine creature. Would it be very sad when we go diving and see lots of dead corals? Of course, we would. What can we do to prevent this to happen? How can we and our students involve in some coral conservation? It is everyone responsibility to help improve our world to be a better place to live in. ...

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Posted in: GLOBE Working Groups: Science Working Group
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By Mohsen Mhadhbi, posted 07.01.16 12:54

look for a colleague from university of India (nanomaterials) to collaborate with him

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We all know that the SMAP satellite measures soil moisture. But, how does knowing our planet's soil moisture help us in understanding agriculture's reaction to it? SMAP monitors soil moisture and provides critical information for drought early warning. In fact, a deficit in the amount of moisture in the soil defines agricultural drought. SMAP's measurements will come into play because researchers forecast a threefold increase in drought frequency in many regions of the world by the end of the 21st Century. History shows that a sustained drought can result in crop failure, deaths of...

Узнать больше О SMAP and Agriculture: An Important Link »

Posted in: Field Campaigns: SMAP Investigation Areas: Pedosphere (Soil) » Soil Moisture - SMAP Block Pattern Pedosphere (Soil) Primary Audience: Trainers Teachers Students Partners Scientists Alumni Country Coordinators

My first empirical contact with the soil started almost 10 years ago when I was writing my B.Sc Dissertation on Grain Size Characteristics of Overbank Deposit on the Floodplains of Opa Reservoir Basin SW Nigeria. While undergoing this research I took 200 core bulk soil sediments along the three selected floodplains coupled with laboratory testing of samples, after a year the research was published by International Journal of Environmental Hydrology. http://www.hydroweb.com/journal-hydrology-2007-paper-22.html The SMAP training at LA during the 20th GLOBE Annual and Partners Meeting...

Узнать больше О Playing with Soils: GLOBE Nigeria Sets To Join SMAP Student Field Campaign »

Posted in: Field Campaigns: SMAP GLOBE Working Groups: Science Working Group
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By Farid Hamdan, posted 23.12.15 20:13

MERRY  CHRISTMAS

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The Surface Temperature Field Campaign has come to a close, but please feel free to keep taking surface temperature observations. I know that many of you and your students are still taking observations and you are planning your projects to present at science fairs as well as the GLOBE regional science fairs. The Surface Temperature field campaign ran through the first day of winter. In the Northern Hemisphere, the official first day of winter is December 22 this year and in the Southern Hemisphere, it was the first day of summer . The start of the seasons are actually defined in different...

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Posted in: Field Campaigns: Surface Temperature GLOBE Working Groups: Science Working Group

This second week of the surface temperature field campaign has seem probably the warmest temperatures that we have seen in any field campaign in the eastern United States. I was at Ida Middle School in Michigan yesterday and the kids were outside in short sleeve shirts. The student was a little cold but it wasn’t terrible. Some years there is 200 mm of snow on the ground. We have had 26 schools, 8 countries and 9 US states enter 414 observations. Roswell-Kent Middle School is leading the pack with 83 observations. Main Street School in Ohio and Crestwood High School in Michigan are keeping...

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Posted in: Field Campaigns: Surface Temperature GLOBE Working Groups: Science Working Group

From Dr. Erika Podest, SMAP Scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. How do the measurements from different GLOBE protocols serve a mutual purpose better understanding our planet? In previous blogs I’ve discussed the importance of soil moisture and how it plays a large role in weather prediction, flood and drought forecasting, plant growth, and even in pin pointing areas at risk for mosquito carrying diseases (such as malaria or yellow fever). Soil moisture also drives or is driven by other environmental variables such as air temperature, soil temperature, humidity, and...

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Posted in: Field Campaigns: SMAP Investigation Areas: Pedosphere (Soil) » Soil Moisture - SMAP Block Pattern

We have had a great start to our 2015 Surface Temperature Field Campaign. We are off to a quick start with 16 schools reporting since December 1, 2015. There are a number of other schools that collected data in November. I hope they are able to collect observations in December as well. Since November 1, 8 countries have reported data and 5 states within the United States. If we look at the number of observations since December 1, Main Street School in Norwalk, Ohio has the most observations. Below, I’ll talk about how El Nino is affecting the temperatures in the United States. I noticed...

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Posted in: Field Campaigns: Surface Temperature GLOBE Working Groups: Science Working Group
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By Kristen Weaver, posted 04.12.15 14:33

GPM's ground validation campaign called OLYMPEX is in full swing! (See my earlier blog post for more background about the campaign.) You can visit the OLYMPEX website to see daily precipitation data, like this image below: If you go to the website itself, you can click on any of the points to get more detailed information about that station, see the latest satellite and  coastal radar images, and read science summaries. For a quicker overview, here are two videos about the campaign. One produced by NASA: And one produced by the Weather Channel: Enjoy!

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Hello from Medford Memorial Middle School in Medford, New Jersey. The quest to get an accurate soil sample continues at Medford Memorial Middle School, Medford NJ. Hello, we are the students of Memorial’s Citizen Science Education Program. We’re excited to be part of the SMAP campaign, but have not yet been able to enter any data.  Here’s a brief overview of our journey. First, we learned about SMAP as a satellite, and then we studied the protocol. We didn’t have any soil sample cans, so we settled on a sturdy coffee can, Ryan had brought in from home. Ashwin measured 5 cm from the...

Узнать больше О GUEST BLOG from Medford Memorial Middle School in Medford, NJ: Testing and Finessing Soil Moisture Measurements »

Posted in: Field Campaigns: SMAP Investigation Areas: Pedosphere (Soil) » Bulk Density Pedosphere (Soil) » Soil Moisture - SMAP Block Pattern Pedosphere (Soil) » Soil Moisture - Gravimetric Pedosphere (Soil) Primary Audience: Trainers Teachers Students Partners Scientists Alumni Country Coordinators

Greetings from Alfred State College in Alfred, New York! We are very excited to be participating in the NASA SMAP soil moisture sampling project. The project here is overseen by Jessica Hutchison, Instructor in the Department of Agriculture and Veterinary Technology. Two Agriculture Technology students, Kayana Fonseca and Peter Meyer, take samples and input data. We have one site, located right outside the greenhouse next to the agriculture building so we don't have to travel far to get a sample in bad weather. We are lucky to have a soils laboratory and sampling equipment right in the...

Узнать больше О GUEST BLOG by Alfred State College: From Milking Cows to Taking Soil Moisture Samples »

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Guest Blog by NASA SMAP Scientists Dr. Erika Podest and Dr. Narendra Das of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California USA. SMAP scientists are using soil moisture in a number of ways, ways that allow all of us to better understand water’s role on Earth: Weather Prediction: Water in the soil has the potential to evaporate (depending on atmospheric temperature and pressure) and when it does it plays a large role in cloud formation. Soil moisture also has a modulating effect on air temperature and humidity therefore having the ability to measure soil moisture continuously...

Узнать больше О How Do NASA Scientists Use the SMAP Satellite Data? »

Posted in: Field Campaigns: SMAP GLOBE Science Topics: Earth as a System Scientist Skills Earth System Science General Science GLOBE Protocols Investigation Areas: Pedosphere (Soil) Primary Audience: Trainers Teachers Students Partners Scientists Alumni Country Coordinators

December 1 to December 31, 2015 The GLOBE Program will host the annual surface temperature field campaign from December 1 to December 31, 2015.  This is a great opportunity to work as a community with schools around the world on a common research project. Students have used the surface temperature field campaign data to do research projects from fourth grade up to graduate students at universities. One of my graduate students published her masters thesis and found that a strong warming due to urban areas is observable in the student data. It is my hope that continued expansion of the...

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Posted in: Field Campaigns: Surface Temperature GLOBE Working Groups: Science Working Group

Have you ever wondered how the SMAP satellite, with an altitude of 685 km (425 miles) above the Earth, can take measurements as precise as the amount of water in the Earth's soil? The quick answer is that it requires precisely calibrated instruments, along with a technological marvel in satellite design. SMAP was designed to use a combination of two precise instruments, one with high resolution, one with high accuracy. THE INSTRUMENTS: Active (High Resolution): SMAP’s radar was designed accurately measure the echoes of very short radio frequency (RF) pulses that bounce (“backscatter”)...

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Posted in: Curriculum: Science and Math Technology Field Campaigns: SMAP GLOBE Science Topics: Earth System Science Investigation Areas: Pedosphere (Soil) Primary Audience: Trainers Teachers Students Partners Scientists Alumni Country Coordinators
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By Brian Andrew Campbell, posted 19.10.15 14:05

The SMAP Mission is vital to understanding our planet. Water is an essential source for life. By understanding the amount of water in the soil, or soil moisture, we can apply this information to many things. Monitoring Drought SMAP monitors soil moisture and provides critical information for drought early warning. In fact, a deficit in the amount of moisture in the soil defines agricultural drought. SMAP's measurements will come into play because researchers forecast a threefold increase in drought frequency in many regions of the world by the end of the 21st Century. History shows that...

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Posted in: Field Campaigns: SMAP GLOBE Science Topics: GLOBE Protocols Investigation Areas: Pedosphere (Soil) Primary Audience: Trainers Teachers Students Partners Country Coordinators

Weekly Report 1: 10/1/15 - 10/15/15 This report contains two weeks of data collection due to the beginning of the campaign on October 1, 2015: Volumetric Soil Moisture Measurements = 19 Participating Sites = 4 Schools Submitting Data: Shumate Middle School - Michigan - 8 data counts Ramey School - Puerto Rico -7 data counts The University of Toledo -Ohio - 2 data counts Thomas Edison Energy/Smart Charter School - New Jersey - 2 data counts Congratulations to those schools for getting a great start. Let's get more schools participating! Brian

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Posted in: Curriculum: Science and Math Field Campaigns: SMAP GLOBE Science Topics: GLOBE Protocols Investigation Areas: Pedosphere (Soil) News Topics: Competitions Primary Audience: Trainers Teachers Students Partners Country Coordinators

Many of you contributed data during the GPM-GLOBE Precipitation Field Campaign earlier this year.  Here's an opportunity to learn about an upcoming scientific field campaign, upon which our student field campaign was modeled.  The Olympic Mountain Experiment, or OLYMPEX, is a NASA-led field campaign, which will take place on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State from November 2015 through February 2016. The goal of the campaign is to collect detailed atmospheric measurements that will be used to evaluate how well rain-observing satellites measure rainfall and snowfall from...

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By Tony P Murphy, posted 07.10.15 9:29

And so last time we wondered whether Jayme would reach the summit... read her account below, to find out. September 29, 2015 With very little sleep at Kosovo camp, we bundled on our layers and tried to eat some breakfast on September 29, 2015. After making sure we had plenty of water, we began our daunting task up the volcanic scree. The guides led us up a path with many switchbacks, but it did not help us with the lower oxygen we were getting with each breathe. As the clouds rolled in, the Omani team was frequently asking for breaks. The guides would find a spot with larger volcanic...

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Greetings from NASA and the SMAP Mission! The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Mission is an orbiting observatory that measures the amount of water in the top 5 cm (2 inches) of soil everywhere on Earth’s surface will soon be placed in a polar orbit around Earth. The topsoil layer is the one in which the food we eat grows and where other vegetation lives. Moisture in the soil indirectly affects us in a variety of ways. In the course of its observations, SMAP will also determine if the ground is frozen or thawed in colder areas of the world. SMAP is designed to measure soil...

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GLOBE Teachers and Students, The GLOBE/SMAP Soil Moisture Measurement Field Campaign has begun!   To support this effort, the SMAP satellite mission invites GLOBE schools to participate in the 7-month-long soil moisture measurement campaign. Students will take soil moisture measurements following the GLOBE SMAP Block Pattern Soil Moisture (Volumetric) Protocol and input this data into GLOBE.  Once the data is input, other GLOBE schools and SMAP scientists can view the student-collected data, through the GLOBE visualization tool, and compare it to the SMAP satellite data. This...

Узнать больше О The GLOBE/SMAP Soil Moisture Measurement Field Campaign Has Begun! »

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By Tony P Murphy, posted 01.10.15 7:18

As I did not summit, I asked a GLOBE teacher and volcanologist (and no, she does not have ears like Dr. Spock from Star Trek!) Jayme Margolin-Sneider who did, to share her experience and that of the group that did summit.  As some background, Jayme completed her undergraduate degree at Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA and Auckland University, New Zealand.  She then completed some research as a Fulbright Scholar at Hokkaido University, Japan (Seismic Volcanology Research).  Her graduate work was completed at New Mexico Tech, with a field...

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By Tony P Murphy, posted 01.10.15 6:44

Our final day was an easy hike down from the Mweka camp to a village at 1400 m.  We had a final glance of the mountain at one point as we descended.  It looked beautiful with its fresh covering of snow. Kilimanjaro, with a fresh coat of snow, as seen from our final descent.   We were definitely in the rain forest biome again and the lush forest surrounded us as on our first day. We also saw the elephant trunk flower, (Impatiens kilimanjarii), a semi-official logo of the mountain.    Elephant trunk flower found along the side of the trail As we approached...

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By Tony P Murphy, posted 30.09.15 13:22

For group 1, the science group, the descent was more gradual.  But for group 2, the big descent would be today. They would summit and descend most of the mountain on this day.   While waiting to leave Millenium camp, we collected data using GLOBE protocols.  Following this we had a rousing chorus of African songs, and we were all invited to join in. The group was in great spirits as we began our relatively short and all downhill hike.  We also passed a few other hikers as we walked -- this was an encouraging sign.  We were still in the moorland biome and were...

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By Tony P Murphy, posted 29.09.15 11:02

After another cold night on the mountain (it was two degrees Celsius inside the tents) we awoke to a wonderful sight... Mt. Meru in a sea of clouds.   Mt. Meru, Tanzania's second highest mountain, in a sea of clouds as seen from Karanga Camp. Incredible view so early in the morning and a great way to begin our day.  The hike today would be a short three hours, so after a hearty breakfast we headed to Millenium camp.  The terrain was very much the same, but we did see obsidian rocks (formed when the lava from a volcano cools...

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GIO Director, Tony Murphy, taking water temperature in stream near Baranco camp early in the morning.  Temperature was 5C. Karanga camp, which is 10 m below Baranco camp is home for Monday night.  What an adventurous day we had getting there!  We began our morning taking soil moisture measurements for the SMAP campaign.  Mark Brettenny, GLOBE Africa Regional Officer, checking on a soil moisture probe before students take measurements. Then we hiked the 'wall.' As we left camp, it was full with a human train -- lots of hikers, guides and porters making...

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