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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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Let's talk about collaboration?
Collaboration is a way to share your research, measurements, and ideas with others that have similar goals and interests. Collaboration is about much more than just sharing data or sharing techniques, it is about leveraging the expertise of others with your own, and combining them into a "POWERPACK" of results.
During our current Phase II of the GLOBE ENSO Student Research Campaign, we are "Taking Data to the Next Level!" One way to maximize this effort is to work with other schools from around the GLOBE community to answer big questions regarding the ...
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Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
EL NIÑO
Investigation Areas:
SOIL MOISTURE - SMAP BLOCK PATTERN
PEDOSPHERE (SOIL)
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
How hot was August 2016? It was the hottest August in the last 136 years of modern meteorological record keeping?
On Sept. 12, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) posted its monthly analysis of global temperatures for August 2016. The analysis by the GISS team is assembled from publicly available data acquired by about 6,300 meteorological stations around the world; ship- and buoy-based instruments measuring sea surface temperature; and Antarctic research stations.
"Monthly rankings, which vary by only a few hundredths of a degree, are inherently ...
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
EL NIÑO
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
Have you been taking lots of GLOBE data for the El Niño Student Research Campaign? Now that you have all the data, what can you do with it?
There are lots of cool ways to make sense of your data by sharing your WATER STORIES via the H2yOu Project and El Niño stories via the Story Maps Project .
By analyzing your El Niño protocol data, you can develop stories that will tell the rest of the world how the El Niño phenomena has affected your area. Perhaps students in other parts of the world have collected data similar to yours.
You can also take your data and develop a project ...
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
EL NIÑO
Investigation Areas:
ATMOSPHERE
EARTH AS A SYSTEM
HYDROSPHERE
PEDOSPHERE (SOIL)
BIOSPHERE
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
Earlier this summer, scientists predicted about a 75% chance of a La Niña following the El Niño from 2015-2016. But now, a La Niña is most likely not going to happen, with a 40% chance as of September.
Last Spring, waters in the Pacific Ocean seemed to be cooling off. This is an indicator of a La Niña weather pattern. Scientists have now noticed that these water temperatures have been leveling off, thus decreasing the chance of a La Niña event.
The current ENSO period of neutrality will continue into the Fall.
Monthly sea surface temperature in the Niño 3.4 region of the ...
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
EL NIÑO
Investigation Areas:
ATMOSPHERE
EARTH AS A SYSTEM
HYDROSPHERE
PEDOSPHERE (SOIL)
BIOSPHERE
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
Mark Your Calendars!!!
The GLOBE ENSO Student Research Campaign will continue with Phase II. The official commencement of Phase II will be at the Wednesday, September 21, 2016 at 8:00pm EDT (12:00 am September 22nd UTC). Please visit the WEBINAR page to sign up and join us in celebrating the beginning of another year of the ENSO Student Research Campaign.
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
EL NIÑO
Primary Audience:
TEACHERS
TRAINERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
ALUMNI
As you might know, NASA came out with a statement that July 2016 was the hottest month on record, ever! Since the 2015-2016 El Niño event began in October 2015, each month has set a new record for the hottest month on record. Even though we are currently in a period of neutrality, we are on the tails of an El Niño and quite possibly about to enter a La Niña.
"Since October 2015, every month has set a new global record for hottest temperatures. It coincides with an unusually strong El Niño Pattern which caused severe heat and drought across Southeast Asia, as well as raising ...
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
EL NIÑO
Investigation Areas:
ATMOSPHERE
EARTH AS A SYSTEM
HYDROSPHERE
PEDOSPHERE (SOIL)
BIOSPHERE
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
Plants need light to grow. They also require nutrients. For tiny marine plants, called phytoplankton, those nutrients are often brought up from the ocean’s cold, deep waters to the surface by mixing. But this normal circulation gets disrupted during El Niño years, when huge masses of warm water—equivalent to about half of the volume of the Mediterranean Sea—slosh east across the Pacific Ocean towards South America. The change can have fatal consequences for phytoplankton in the eastern equatorial Pacific.
Here is the full story with associated images and video!
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
EL NIÑO
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
10. El Niño Student Campaign Refresher and Update - Wednesday, September 21st, 2016 8:00 pm EDT (12:00 am September 22nd UTC)
In this hour-long webinar, participants will get a refresher on this campaign, and will hear from several GLOBE teachers who have been involved with their classes from the start of the campaign. We will discuss the need for ongoing data collection and share the current state of the ENSO cycle. We will have a NASA scientist discuss the current state of the ENSO cycle and what it might mean for weather conditions for the remainder of this campaign. ...
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
EL NIÑO
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
Water Availability can be defined as "The hydrologic capacity of a water source (surface water body, groundwater, municipal water) to sustain additional water demands after considering other current water uses and water conditions. (GEMI, 2012)
The Soil Moisture Active Passive Mission provides information on water availability and environmental stress for estimating plant productivity and potential yield. The availability of direct observations of soil moisture status and the timing and extent of potential frost damage from SMAP enables significant improvements in operational crop ...
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
SMAP
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
STUDENTS
TEACHERS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
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 ...
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
SMAP
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
"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 ...
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
SMAP
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
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!
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
SMAP
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
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 ...
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 ...
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
SMAP
Investigation Areas:
SOIL MOISTURE - SMAP BLOCK PATTERN
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
ALUMNI
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 ...
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Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
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. ...
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
SMAP
Investigation Areas:
SOIL MOISTURE - SMAP BLOCK PATTERN
PEDOSPHERE (SOIL)
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
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, ...
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
SMAP
Investigation Areas:
SOIL MOISTURE - SMAP BLOCK PATTERN
PEDOSPHERE (SOIL)
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
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 ...
Posted in:
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
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 ...
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
SMAP
Investigation Areas:
SOIL MOISTURE - SMAP BLOCK PATTERN
PEDOSPHERE (SOIL)
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
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 ...
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
SMAP
Investigation Areas:
BULK DENSITY
SOIL MOISTURE - SMAP BLOCK PATTERN
SOIL MOISTURE - GRAVIMETRIC
PEDOSPHERE (SOIL)
Primary Audience:
TRAINERS
TEACHERS
STUDENTS
PARTNERS
SCIENTISTS
ALUMNI
COUNTRY COORDINATORS
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