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Last week’s GLOBE Scientists’ blog, “Peculiar weather – just because it sounds odd doesn’t mean it didn’t happen!” talked about inquiry-based learning.  If you have a great question and decide to investigate further, how can you share your results?  Sharing results is an essential part of the scientific method.   If scientists didn’t share their work, how would we know what has already been done?  Or what is already known?  One of the best options for young scientists to share results is to participate in a science fair.  Science fairs often occur in...

I have always been passionate about the weather.  When I realized that to fulfill this passion I had to have a career in atmospheric science, I started acquiring all sorts of books, charts, movies, and other weather related things.  One of those books was a book from the early 1990’s called It’s Raining Frogs and Fishes by Jerry Dennis.  It was really interesting to me because it discussed all of the different seasons and some different phenomena that different parts of the world experience during the seasons.  As I continue to blog for The GLOBE Program, my mind...

This week, we have a guest post from Dr. Angela Rowe – a post-doc with Colorado State University and the country of Taiwan examining radar data and monsoons.  Dr. Rowe received her undergraduate degree in meteorology from Millersville University, and her Master’s and Doctoral degrees from Colorado State University, focusing on the Asian and North American Monsoons.  This post is timely, as the monsoon was mentioned in many of the state of the climate of 2010 discussions for different GLOBE regions. When most people hear the word “monsoon”, thoughts of abrupt, intense...

In December 2009, Dr. Donna Charlevoix, of the GLOBE Program Office, attended the COP-15 (15th meeting of the Conference of Parties) meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark.  Dr. Charlevoix gave a great summary of the meetings in five separate blog posts that began on 7 December 2009.  Some of you may have read these posts, and for those of you who haven’t, I encourage you to visit them, beginning with the first to get a better understanding of the importance of these annual meetings. This year’s meeting was titled COP-17 (17th Conference of Parties).  The meeting is...

Sometimes in a rapidly changing world, it is difficult to see the effects that small changes in human lifestyle can have on not only climate, but on ecosystems.  Various countries and international organizations are working to pass legislation to ensure change.  One such case of legislation working is being observed in the San Francisco Bay – the return of harbor porpoises.  This was recently reported in the  QUEST biology blog . The map below shows the location of the San Francisco Bay, marked by the bubble with an A, from Google.  In 1972,...

This week we’ll continue our look at the climate summaries for each GLOBE region, with a focus on the North America region.  These annual reports provide a summary of the global climatic conditions and are a great benchmark for monitoring climate. Regional reports provide a tremendous amount of information. The temperature and precipitation climate summaries are highlighted here, but if you are interested, more information about the North America Region state of the climate is available from this website: ...

This week we’ll continue our look at the climate summaries for each GLOBE region, with a focus on the Latin America-Caribbean region.  Remember that these annual reports provide a summary of the global climatic conditions and are a great benchmark for monitoring climate. You can use this data in your own GLOBE climate research projects! Regional reports provide a tremendous amount of information including temperature, precipitation, tropical cyclone activity, and notable events. Temperature and precipitation climate summaries are highlighted here; more information about the...

This week we’ll continue our look at the climate summaries for each GLOBE region, with a focus on the Europe-Eurasia region.  Recall that these annual reports provide a summary of the global climatic conditions and are a great benchmark for monitoring climate. Regional reports provide a tremendous amount of information. The temperature and precipitation climate summaries are highlighted here, but if you are interested, more information about the Europe-Eurasia Region state of the climate is available from this website: ...

This week we’ll continue our look at the climate summaries for each GLOBE region, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region.  Recall that these annual reports provide a summary of the global climatic conditions and are a great benchmark for monitoring climate. Regional reports provide a tremendous amount of information. The temperature and precipitation climate summaries are highlighted here, but if you are interested, more information about the Asia-Pacific Region state of the climate is available from this website: ...

In a recent blog post , we shared with you the NOAA State of the Climate report for 2010. These annual reports provide a summary of the global climatic conditions and are a great benchmark for monitoring climate. Along with the global summary, the report summarizes regions. The regions very closely overlap with the GLOBE Regions! We will go through the report and provide a summary for each GLOBE Region. A review of the Regional summaries is a great way for you to see how the climate of your region compared with the regions of other GLOBE Schools. We will start off with Africa. All...

Starting tomorrow, July 1, 2011, the Climate and Land Cover (CLC) Project will commence! This project is a joint research effort between GLOBE schools around the world and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists in the United States. The purpose is to use data collected by students to improve current land cover classifications, which can also improve climate models that need to use land cover data. As a fellow atmospheric scientist once said to me, if you put bad data into your model, you’re going to get bad data out. So an improvement in land cover should help...

The GLOBE Program is excited to announce the relaunch of the GLOBE Scientists’ Blog! This blog will be a place where GLOBE Scientists can share their thoughts about a variety of scientific topics. In January 2011, three new scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO joined the GLOBE Program Office as support to the Science and Education team. These three scientists are Duncan Axisa, Jessica Mackaro, and Sarah Tessendorf.   Duncan Axisa is an Associate Scientist at NCAR’s Research Applications Laboratory. Duncan is responsible for...