Student Research Reports

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Surface temperature is a critical factor that influences local and regional heating because the troposphere we live in warms from the bottom up.  Scientists closely monitor the surface temperature in their efforts to document and explain our rising worldwide temperatures.  This year’s polar vortex in January was a recent weather phenomenon. With our research, we sought to determine if there is a correlation between the air temperatures and surface temperatures during this frosty period and if the polar vortex had an effect on the data we collected at all.  For the majority of this school year, we have been collecting surface and air temperature data as well as cloud types and other select atmospheric parameters. We found that wind chill was consistently lower than air and surface temperature and the surface temperature was lower than air temperature on all but 2 days.  It was also observed that the cloud cover doesn’t correlate with the surface temperature during this period but further research has to be done. When comparing our temperatures with the average Detroit Metropolitan area it was noted that the average of Detroit was consistently higher due to recordings taken at higher altitudes.