January 2012 - Climate and Land Cover Project
January 2012 CLC Summary
Dear GLOBE Students and Teachers,
Thank you for your participation in the January 2012 Climate and Land Cover (CLC) Intensive Observing Period (IOP). This IOP is part of the GLOBE Student Climate Research Campaign and takes place every three months. We look forward to your continuing participation.
In the January IOP we received 26 data entries of land cover photographs submitted from countries in GLOBE regions such as Europe/Eurasia, North America, and Latin America/Caribbean. Most all of these entries are for land cover sites that were photographed in previous CLC IOPs, which is great because we are now building an archive of data over time at these locations! Thank you to all repeat participating schools! We hope that in the upcoming IOPs we will continue to see more photographs for these sites, as well as for new sites so we can have entries from every GLOBE region!
The photographs that you are taking assist in validating land cover data and provide documentation of how the landscape changes from season to season and from year to year. In addition to that, these photographs help document how land cover looks in one part of the world compared to another, even for locations with the same Koppen-Geiger climate classification. Take for example Six Pines School in Texas, who are in a Cfc climate classification and Zakladni Skola in the Czech Republic who are in a Cfb climate classification (see What is my climate classification for more on how to determine your climate classification).
Both of these locations are warm temperate climates that often have relatively warm winters. However, this winter has been exceptionally cold in Europe (see the GLOBE Scientists' blog post on "Frosty and Frozen: Europe's Frigid winter"), while it has been fairly mild for North America. Looking at the January land cover photos from these two sites, the land cover in the Czech Republic is indeed very snowy, while in Texas it is quite dry. As we build up a longer-term record of land cover photographs for these sites and other GLOBE school sites, we are able to monitor how the land cover responds to changing weather and climate patterns all over the world.
In this case, the land cover photographs can be used to validate the climate differences from one location with another place on the Earth! We encourage you to look for land cover photos from other schools with a similar (or different) climate classification to compare with yours! And as always, we look forward to receiving your next set of photographs to be submitted during the upcoming April IOP!
Sincerely,
The Climate and Land Cover Science Team