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Discover how the GLOBE community is engaging in all things GLOBE through the community blog posts below.
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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.
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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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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 ...
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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 km 2 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 ...
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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 ...
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Field Campaigns:
SMAP
Investigation Areas:
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 ...
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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.
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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 ...
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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. ...
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Field Campaigns:
SMAP
Investigation Areas:
SOIL MOISTURE - SMAP BLOCK PATTERN
PEDOSPHERE (SOIL)
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
See https://www.facebook.com/groups/602168936587444/
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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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Field Campaigns:
SMAP
Investigation Areas:
SOIL MOISTURE - SMAP BLOCK PATTERN
PEDOSPHERE (SOIL)
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Field Campaigns:
SMAP
GLOBE Science Topics:
EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE
Investigation Areas:
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 ...
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GLOBE Working Groups:
SCIENCE WORKING GROUP
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 ...
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Field Campaigns:
SMAP
Investigation Areas:
SOIL MOISTURE - SMAP BLOCK PATTERN
PEDOSPHERE (SOIL)
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
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