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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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WOW, WOW, WOW! Early Saturday morning, January 31, 2015, everything was a GO for the SMAP launch except the high altitude winds were too strong to proceed. Everyone was on edge and ten minutes before the scheduled launch time things turned for the better. The wind situation was deemed “green” and it was safe to continue. Whew!
The launch itself was an exhilarating experience. As the countdown reached the final two seconds there was a sudden boom, followed by a bright yellow/orange glow and a white cloud that mushroomed to the sides of the rocket. SMAP soared into the sky much faster ...
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I was born and raised in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. If you’re unfamiliar with this extreme northern region of Michigan, it is meteorologically famous for its snow. Lots of snow. Insane amounts of snow. Sled-from-your rooftop piles of snow (see below image). Driving a car in this winter wonderland is difficult since pavement is merely a rumor on most streets from November through April. While snow provides many anxious driving moments, it is also cherished for creating breathtaking winter landscapes and for providing a wide variety of winter outdoor ...
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Chances are that if you are reading this blog you are interested in bringing the exciting world of satellites and remote sensing into your classroom. Over the past five decades NASA and NOAA have archived satellite imagery and datasets and there is high interest in educators using these resources from both agencies. However, the challenge to the precollege community over the years has been one of both acquiring the technical skills to retrieve such imagery and data, and having the computer power to acquire and store such large files. The good news is that while aerospace engineers ...
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We're just over two weeks in to the campaign, and I wanted to give a shout out to those schools who have so far entered data. Some of them are entering data from multiple sites at their school to have so many data points in two weeks. Keep up the good work, and more updates coming soon!
School Name
City
State/Country
Data Entries February 1st through 15th
Sumarska i drvodjeljska skola
Karlovac
Croatia
29
Lourdes Public Charter School
Scio
Oregon, USA
20
OS Banija
Karlovac
Croatia ...
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The SMAP team would like to give a shout out to the schools in Trinidad and Tobago, Croatia, and Oman that have already started taking measurements with the SMAP Block Pattern Soil Moisture Protocol .
We are excited to compare GLOBE student data to the SMAP spacecraft data, once the spacecraft starts taking soil moisture. The SMAP spacecraft is currently working on the phase when we raise the antenna boom and unfurl the collecting dish.
Thank you and keep the soil moisture data coming!
Brian
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Hi Everyone,
The Thursday before the launch of SMAP was a day of much anticipation and excitement. We were ready to go, but high upper winds caused the cancellation of the launch four minutes before lift-off. You might be wondering how we monitor wind conditions at high altitudes (in this case, thirty four thousand feet). We do it by sending up weather balloons ahead of time to make these measurements where the rocket will be flying. The last balloon data came down just minutes before launch indicating that the winds exceeded conditions for a safe launch. Afterwards, inspections ...
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The Palmyra Cove Nature Park is a 250 acre open space in New Jersey. The park is located on the Delaware River about 7 miles north of Philadelphia, PA. You can check the site out by using Google Earth … (40 N, 75 W).
There are various land cover types, resulting in varying ecosystems within the park. There is a tidal cove (with wetlands), forest, river/beach, and an Army Corps of Engineers dredge cell. The South Jersey/Eastern Pennsylvania/Delaware region, known as the Delaware Valley, is an interesting and often tricky forecast region, even for the National weather Service (NWS). It ...
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Hi Everyone,
My name is Erika Podest, and I am a scientist at JPL working on the SMAP mission. I’ll be writing about SMAP’s debut into space and providing updates during this exciting time. Welcome to my first post!
As a child growing up in tropical Panama and enjoying its exuberant nature, I always had a love for the environment. I went from playing in nature to studying it, and focused my research on the use of satellites to study Earth. As a doctoral candidate, I did part of my research as an intern at JPL, and this opportunity led me to ultimately become a scientist at JPL. ...
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Weather fascinates people and it is something we talk about every day. It is interesting to note that we mostly complain about the weather: too cold, too hot, too wet. For some reason, we do not acknowledge the weather when there is a sunny and comfortable day to do outdoor activities. We get quickly disappointed if the weather does not meet the forecast, especially if the forecast was sunny but precipitation falls from the sky.
First, what is precipitation? Precipitation is defined as any product of condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under ...
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So, what if I told you that the water you drink today is the same water dinosaurs drank over one hundred million years ago? Yep, the same amount of water has been circulating the globe in what we call “The Hydrologic Cycle” (also known as the Water Cycle). But don’t worry, you will not catch some dinosaur-disease by drinking it. Water in the Hydrologic Cycle has the ability to evaporate from the land and ocean surfaces and travel large distances as water vapor, only to fall down on the ground as precipitation (rain and snow). The same water later travels on the surface as streams and ...
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Introduction: The Global Precipitation Measurement Mission and GLOBE Student Field Campaign
by Kristen Weaver, GPM Education Specialist
My original topic for this introductory blog was going to be how to participate in the field campaign, but those details are well covered in the " How to Participate " section. For any technical questions, the GLOBE Support Team is always helpful, or for other questions about the campaign you can get in touch with me and/or the rest of the GPM Education Team here .
So that taken care of, the question becomes: Why should you contribute ...
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There have been 28 schools that have entered data associated with the GLOBE Surface Temperature Field Campaign for a total of 782 observations. The number of observations for a school is in parenthesis.
Al-Fath Secondary School at Abha, Saudi Arabia
Brazil High School, Tinidad and Tobago (18) – Thank you Mr. Ali
Camanche Elementary School, Iowa, USA
Chartiers-Housgon Jr./Sr. High School, Pennsylvania, USA (8)– Thanks Gary
Chia-Yi Girls Senior High School, Taiwan (9)
Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies, Illinois, USA, 8 different sites (41)
Feng-Shan Senior High ...
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My passion towards Global Precipitation Measurement Mission started when I visited GPM Clean Room at Goddard Space Flight Centre in August 2013 during 18 th GLOBE Annual Partner Meeting in Maryland, United States. Having received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through University of Toledo, Ohio to participate in the event gave me reasons to maximize the opportunity. As a scientist from Nigerian Space Agency, this opportunity gave a rare privilege to contribute to the development of Environmental Education (EE) in my resource-constrained country and the world at large. ...
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