FAQ - Other Instruments

Other Instruments

You need to change the position field to decimal degrees in the main setup menu, and you need to select "position" rather than "lat/long" on the navigation page. To do this second part:

  1. Go to the navigation page (the one with the location displayed)
  2. Press enter quickly (don't hold it down)
  3. An "Options" box pops up. Select Option 1 "Change Fields" by pressing enter.
  4. Scroll down until "location" is highlighted and press enter.
  5. A list of optional fields appears. Select "location".
  6. The unit then displays location in decimal degrees!

The GLOBE pH meter calibrates internally. If the calibration instructions included with the instrument are not followed to the letter, then the instrument will not calibrate. The instructions IN the box are to be followed, not the ones ON the back of the box. The following are especially important:

  1. The pH meter MUST sit in water (up to the sampling line) for at least one hour prior to calibration to prepare the electrode. You need to ensure that there is no residue on the electrode, as this can effect the reading.
  2. The pH meter should be calibrated FIRST to pH 7, THEN, rinsing off the electrode each time, to pH 4 and pH 10. NOTE: The sequence of buffers is important (pH 7 first, then 4, and finally 10).
  3. Immerse the electrode in solution (up to the fluid line indicated), hit the CAL button, and the screen will flash. Wait for the value to stabilize. This took 4 minutes on one of the instruments tested. Hit HOLD to hold the value.

When this instrument works, it provides better accuracy and precision than the pH pen. If, after several attempts, you are unable to calibrate the instrument, return it to the vendor and a replacement will be provided.

Sun photometers can be purchased directly from our scientist Dr. Brooks. For more information see his Website. Kindly contact Dr. Brooks before ordering: brooksdr@drexel.edu, voice/FAX (on request only) 610-584-5619.

Please be sure to explain your intentions, because there is a possibility that Dr. Brooks could "loan" the equipment to you if he thinks there is a good chance that there may be data produced for a particular project that he is interested in.

Please note that related instruments — the UV-A radiometer and GLOBE/GIFTS water vapor instrument are available for free (from Dr. Brooks) on "long term loan" because their design and construction has been supported under separate NASA grants. He has lent several water vapor instruments to teachers in places where they can do calibrations, because of their proximity to AERONET and/or GPS-MET sites. If you are interested in this as well, you will want to check with Dr. Brooks to see if your school project may be eligible.

If you are a GLOBE Certified Teacher/School:

If your weather station meets GLOBE specifications (see below), and you have the appropriate logging ability, all you need to do is define a site and indicate the thermometer type as "AWS". This generates an email to our systems support team that tells us that a school wants their Earth Networks data sent to GLOBE. The GLOBE systems team looks up your information in the Earth Networks list of schools and verifies your status. They define that to the GLOBE database, indicating you want your data sent to GLOBE and that's it!

To verify your Earth Networks meets GLOBE requirements, visit the GLOBE Teacher's Guide Search Tool In the search filter use the "Documents and Investigations" drop-down menu and click on Atmosphere -> locate the Protocol Specific Documents select the check box for Protocol and click the Apply Filter button. Select the Atmosphere Protocols Introduction document, on page 2 choose Earth Networks Schools Protocol and follow the instructions provided.

If you are a Non-GLOBE School/Individual:

In order to be a contributor to GLOBE, and to submit your observations (an automated process with your weather station), you will need a School ID and password. This is issued to any school/educational organization/individual that has at least one person attend a GLOBE teacher certification workshop. The purpose of the workshop is to educate those attending in the scientific purpose, methodology and the standards required to meet the GLOBE specifications. The workshops are offered by GLOBE partners in most all states. There is no charge to attend the workshop and receive the initial GLOBE kit. A workshop covering only the atmosphere protocol is generally one-to-two days.

In order to find out about the workshops currently being offered, please move the mouse over "Get Trained" tab -> then select "Find a Workshop in Your Area" from the menu. Here you will find all the workshops posted so far for this year. This schedule is very fluid with new workshops being added regularly. You will see more workshops offered during the summer months. If you do not see a workshop that meets your needs in time and location, we recommend that you contact your State partner(s), Country Coordinator or Regional Coordination Office and ask them what their schedule is for the upcoming months. They may have a workshop in the planning stages, and knowing that there is interest in attending helps them plan. In order to locate contact information, we recommend using our Partner and Country Coordinator Search Tool.

Any time precipitation does not fall in the form of rain, the rain amount should be reported as missing unless your instrument is a heated tipping bucket. Most consumer brand automated weather stations do not have heated tipping buckets. The best practical solution for most is to disable the recording of precipitation by your weather station according to the instrument's manufacturer settings when snow is climatologically expected more so than rain. While your rain gauge is disabled, report precipitation measurements to GLOBE as missing.

For individual cases where snow fell when rain was expected, edit that days data and change the rain amounts to missing. In addition, clear the snow away from the funnel of instrument so that melting snow does not report erroneous rainfall amounts.