Surface Temperature Field Campaign, Finishing UP - Kevin Czajkowski

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Surface Temperature Field Campaign, Finishing UP

The Surface Temperature Field Campaign has come to a close, but please feel free to keep taking surface temperature observations. I know that many of you and your students are still taking observations and you are planning your projects to present at science fairs as well as the GLOBE regional science fairs.

The Surface Temperature field campaign ran through the first day of winter. In the Northern Hemisphere, the official first day of winter is December 22 this year and in the Southern Hemisphere, it was the first day of summer . The start of the seasons are actually defined in different ways depending on who is referring to them. December 22 is the start of astronomical winter. That is the day that the Northern Hemisphere is tilted the most away from the sun while the Southern Hemisphere is tilted the most towards the sun. But, Meteorologists define the start of winter to be December 1. That makes a lot of sense to me since December, January and February are the cold months of the year, i.e. Northern Hemisphere winter. Meteorological spring in the Northern Hemisphere is March, April and May while the Summer is June, July August, etc.

Thirty-four schools have entered a total of 995 surface temperature observations. Here are the schools.

School Name	Observations
2nd Arsakeio-Tositseio lyceum Ekalis, Greece	6
As-Siddiq Secondary School at Rejal Alma'a	44
Barboursville Middle School, West Virginia	1
Birchwood School, Ohio, USA - Hi Linda	4
Brazil Secondary School, Trinidad and Tobago - Hi Ali	33
Chartiers-Houston Jr./Sr. High School, Pennsylvania, USA - Thanks Mr. P	20
Cloverleaf High School, Ohio, USA - Thank you Kathy	33
Crestwood High School, Michigan, USA - Hi Mrs. Johns	78
David Wooster Middle School, Connecticut, USA - Thank you Mr. Newlan	29
GPM Satellite Mission, Maryland, USA	3
Hills Home School, Maryland, USA	15
Huntington High School, West Virginia, USA - Thanks Rick	227
Ida Middle School, Michigan, USA - Thanks Mrs. Harmon	42
III Liceum A. Mickiewicza and Gimnazjum No. 47 in Bydgoszcz	8
Innoko River School, Alaska, USA - Thank you Joyanne!	24
John Marshall High School, West Virginia, USA - Thanks Kim	15
Kilingi-Nomme Gymnasium, Estonia	6
Lakewood Catholic Academy, Ohio, USA - Nice work Mrs. McGuire	62
Mahopac High School	5
Main Street Intermediate School, Ohio, USA - Thanks Mrs. Burns	86
Moamar Bin Rashed Intermediate School at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia	7
Mohican School In The Out-of-Doors Inc., Ohio, USA - Thanks Steve and Susan	21
Montague Elementary School, New Jersey, USA - Thanks Karen	8
Nasokol Girls Secondary School, Kenya	3
Navarre Elementary School, Ohio, USA - Thank you Mrs. Tspranis	22
Omega Academic Grammar School, Nigeria	6
Pompano Beach High School, Florida, USA	1
Roswell Kent Middle School, Ohio, USA - Thanks Mr Frantz	107
Sekundarschule Uzwil, Switzerland - Thank you Markus	10
Shumate Middle School, Michigan, USA	19
South Dakota Discovery Center, South Dakota, USA	1
The Affiliated Senior High school of NCU, Taiwan	4
The University Of Toledo, Ohio, USA - Thanks Carina	30
Wyomissing Area Jr./Sr. High School, Pennsylvania, USA	15

Congratulations to all of you. It was hard to beat Huntington High School in West Virginia but every observations is important. Here is a map of where the observations were taken.

One of the best spatial distribution of data was on December 10, 2015. You can see in the image below that there were cool temperatures in the Eastern United States but they were well above average. It was cold in Alaska. Temperatures in Europe were not too cool wither. What is unusual this year was that there was very little snow in the eastern US and Europe as well. This may be due to the strong El Nino that is affecting the world.

As you can see in this graphic from Ida Middle School in Michigan, the temperatures were very warm in December and there was very little snow. But, they kept taking observations into January and found the temperature dropped considerably. Now, there is snow and temperature are quite cold.