Research Investigations | GLOBE Program

Schools are encouraged to develop and participate in their own climate research investigation by exploring: “What is my climate, and how has it changed over time?” Students are also encouraged to develop collaborations with local scientists to investigate a climate issue of local relevance and to identify any local, regional or national climate datasets.

See what Dr. Charles Ichoku - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Research Physical Scientist - has to say about climate research and the campaign:

Examples of questions to be researched could include:

What is the climate of our community?
How has our climate varied over time?
How does our climate differ from climates in other areas?
How is our climate influenced by climate patterns elsewhere?
How does local land cover affect climate?
Are there any impacts of climate on health issues?

But you can think up your own questions – ideally by collaborating with other GLOBE Schools in different parts of the world, and with local scientists too.

How to get started

Form your key question, or hypothesis.
Plan the methods you will use, and the resources that you will need. If you intend to collect your own data, make sure you follow the appropriate GLOBE Protocols. If you intend using existing data, where is it? And how accurate is it?
Consider collaborating with other GLOBE schools around the world – what joint projects could you consider? Are there local scientists who could help you?
Carry out your research project, remembering to send any data you collect to the GLOBE Database. Also send your research projects to us at SCRC Research.

Additional Resource

Long-term air temperature and precipitation data for SCRC: This Google Earth KML file displays reporting stations of long-term air temperature and precipitation data from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).

From the popup balloons for each city you can download and view the long-term air temperature and precipitation data record in CSV (comma separated value) format for use in a spreadsheet program. The data is available in monthly or yearly intervals, so if you choose to calculate the yearly averages, you will want to download monthly data to start from. Regional averages can be performed on either the monthly or yearly data.

This data comes from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) version 3 data set (air temperature) and version 2 data set (precipitation) managed by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). More information about this data set is available through NCDC at: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ghcnm

Provide Feedback

Please let us know what you think about any of the activities in the GLOBE Student Climate Research Campaign. Feel free to send any suggestions and comments to SCRC Feedback and a member of the GLOBE Science and Education Team will respond in a timely manner.

Thanks for your support!