6 December 2007
So far there have been 291 observations recorded from 27 schools in the surface temperature field campaign. I have had undergraduate students participating, but we haven’t entered our observations yet. So, there will be at least one more school’s data showing up on the GLOBE Web site.
You can see below a list of the schools that have participated and entered data thus far. I would like to highlight some schools that have been doing an exemplary job:
- The Lorain County Community Early College High School in Elyria, Ohio has entered the most observations so far with 37. Nice job Rose O’Toole-Hamman and students!
- In a close second are:
- Birchwood School in Cleveland, Ohio with 32 (thanks Linda Brown and students); and
- Dalton High School in Dalton, Ohio (thanks Jerry Wilmer and students!) with 30.
Data collection accounts for about 80% of time spent on my research project. Without data, there is no way to do the research. Often I am faced with having to revise my research projects because of lack of data. It seems like you never have the right locations or right times to do a thorough study.
Most of the schools are now reporting snow with their surface temperature observations. As you can see in the maps below, there is a lot more snow on the 8 December 2007 image than on the 5 December 2007 image. This was due to a series of Alberta Clippers.
Figure 1. Snow cover for the lower 48 United States for Wednesday, 5 Dec. 2007 (top) and Thursday, 8 Dec. 2007 (bottom). Source: National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center.
Note the increase in snow cover in Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey. This was due to the Alberta Clipper that tracked from Alberta down into the United States and out into the Atlantic Ocean not too far from Washington, DC.
There are some really good examples of places where there is snow on the grass but not on the parking lot. For instance, Whitehall High School in Whitehall, Michigan reported a surface temperature of 0° C on a grassy area with 14 cm of snow. Interestingly, they reported 0° C for a bare parking lot. I am very interested to find out if this is a common occurrence to not see an effect due to the snow.
This year we have much more snow than during the field campaign last year. In fact, it was so warm last year during the surface temperature field campaign that the broccoli in my garden was still growing. I pick my last broccoli on January 1, 2007 last winter. This winter the broccoli was dead several weeks ago because of the cold. So you may be asking, “Why was it so warm in the Great Lakes region last December and so cold this December?” My understanding is that last December there was an El Nino in the Pacific Ocean that lead to warm conditions in the Great Lakes region. This December there is a La Nina in the Pacific Ocean that is leading to the cold conditions in the Great Lakes. I won’t go into the details of this. That can be the subject of another blog entry.
The number of schools participating has stayed nearly the same over the last couple of days. There are many more schools involved, but they have not been entering their observations yet on the GLOBE Web site.
| Roswell Kent Middle School, Akron, Ohio, USA Rockhill Elementary School, Alliance, Ohio, USA Dalton High School, Dalton, Ohio, USA Chartiers-Houston Jr./Sr. High School, Houston, Pennsylvania, USA The Morton Arboretum Youth Education Dept., Lisle, Illinois, USA Mill Creek Middle School, Comstock Park, Michigan, USA Kilingi-Nomme Gymnasium, Parnumaa, Estonia National Presbyterian School, Washington, DC, USA Polaris Career Center, Middleburg Heights, Ohio, USA White Cloud Public, White Cloud, Michigan, USA Steeple Run School, Naperville, Illinois, USA Blue Valley High School, Stilwell, Kansas, USA Kittrell Elementary School, Waterloo, Iowa, USA Ingomar Middle School, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA Lorain Community College Early College High School, Elyria, Ohio, USA Roxboro Middle School, Cleveland Heights, Ohio, USA Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, USA Ida Elementary School, Ida, Michigan, USA Whitehall High School, Whitehall, Michigan, USA Birchwood School, Cleveland, Ohio, USA Moosewood Farm Home School, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA Gimnazium in Toszek, Toszek, Poland Waynesboro Senior High School, Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, USA Estes Park High School, Estes Park, Colorado, USA Eastwood Middle School, Pemberville, Ohio, USA Orange Elementary School, Waterloo, Iowa, USA Main Street School, Norwalk, Ohio, USA |
I think I’ll get my cross country skis out.
Dr. C
