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Urban Heat Island Student Research Campaign Through December

We are in the middle of our December observations for the Urban Heat Island Effect/Surface Temperature Field Campaign. 69 schools have entered 1323 observations. As developer of the surface temperature protocol I wanted to thank everyone who has taken observations. It is your data that will allow other students to create interesting research projects as well as providing a database for me and my students to conduct research. We have schools all over the world taking surface temperature observations to contribute to the campaign. I want to talk about problems some schools are having with their submitted data, the number of observations from each school, and a research project using GLOBE surface temperature observations presented at one of the largest scientific conferences in the world. Lastly, I want to look at a little data and the difference between October and December.

Observation problems to address

There is a number of issues that I see in the data. Please check your data over to make sure that you and your students are taking observations correctly and putting them onto the GLOBE website. 

1.     Make sure that the students are entering the time in correctly as either local or universal time.

2.     Check the latitude and longitude of the sites – there are some schools who used the wrong Hemisphere (eastern versus western). There are a couple of schools who put in the latitude and longitude within the ocean and we know that they aren’t in the ocean.

3.     When entering your surface temperature data, please include one decimal place. The infrared thermometers should have observations that show one decimal place. Please include it.

4.     Some schools are taking observations from more than one cover type and entering the data under one observation. If you are taking observations of grass and concrete, be sure to take at least 3 and preferably 9 observations of the grass and enter them on the GLOBE website. Then, use a different site and observation for the concrete.

 

Schools and Observations so far

Of note are observations from the United States, Croatia, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and Oman. But, it is great to have observations from all of the countries in GLOBE : Brazil, Sri Lanka, UAE, Israel, Japan, Trinidad and Tobago.

 

School Name                                            Observations

Abu baker alsedik basic school                                            1

Al duqom basic school                                                         3

Al-Fath Secondary School at Abha                                      1

Al Fisaliah Gifted School at Jeddah                                     93

Ali bin Abi Talib Secondary School at Jeddah                    23

Ammar Bin Yasir basic school                                             3

Arlington Elementary                                                           1          

As-Siddiq Secondary School at  Rejal Alma'a                    78

Boston University v-School 2017                                       7

Bowling Green State University (USOHP793)                   13

Brazil Secondary School                                                      12

Chartiers-Houston Jr./Sr. High School                                 60

Chia-Yi Girls senior high school                                          78

Clay High School                                                                 8

Crestwood High School                                                       20

Danbury Local School District                                            2

Dove Science Academy                                                        75

East Dakota Water Development District                           11

Escola Municipal Cear√°                                                     2

Faulkton Area School District                                             8

Flint Hill Elementary                                                           17

Freeport High School                                                           24

Haima basic school                                                               15

Haines School                                                                       1

Houjia Junior High School                                                   54

Huntington High School (USWVBCAM)                           1

IES Eusebio Barreto                                                             69

III. osnovna skola Varazdin                                                 8

Isham Elementary                                                                1

Jackman Road Elementary                                                   3

Ket'acik And Aapalluk Memorial School                            10

Kg/ Tholangamuwa CC                                                        2

Lake High School (GLIDMRO6)                                        7

Lakewood Catholic Academy                                              30

Larchmont Elementary                                                         5

Licking Heights West                                                           8

Liou-Guei Senior High School                                              21

Main Street Intermediate School                                          2

Melvin H. Kreps Middle School                                         6

Moamar Bin Rashed Intermediate School at Riyadh           1

Montague Elementary School                                              4

Mountain View School (GLIDPXRW)                               22

National Kinmen Senior High School                                   1

National Lo-Tung Senior High School                                 12

National Taichung Girls‚Äô Senior High School                 1

New Taipei Municipal Jin-Shan High School                     29

Oscar A. Carlson High School                                             14

O≈† Ivana Filipoviƒáa Osijek                                              55

OS Ivana Kukuljevica                                                           71

Osnovna skola grofa Janka Draskovica                                32

OS Sime Budinica                                                                 11

OS Zadarski otoci                                                                5

PEACE Schools Network                                                    58

Reynolds Elementary School                                               1

Salah A-Din Elementary Bedouin School                            1

Samad Basic School                                                              7

SDSU Extension Pennington County 4-H                            5

Shiqaiq Intermediate Girls School at Sabya                         5

Shumate Middle School                                                       37

Skola Za Medicinske Sestre Vrapce                                     21

Spring Creek Elementary (GLIDJSIF)                                 2

Srednja ≈°kola Braƒáa Radiƒá                                              60

The 25th  Secondary Girls School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah  2

The Affiliated Senior High school of NCU                         7

The University Of Toledo                                                   37

University of Toledo GLOBE v-School                              6

Waite High School                                                                22

Webster Avenue Elementary School (GLIDP86R)             5

Wyomissing Area Jr./Sr. High School                                  6

Research Presentation

Lindsey Fagerstrom is an undergraduate student at Carthage College. She was a researcher at the University of Toledo last summer (2017). She presented a poster at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana last week. AGU is one of the largest science conferences in the world. I heard that 30,000 scientists were at the meeting. The research presented ranged from climate change to water pollution. GLOBE fits right in. Her project was titled "The Cabability of GLOBE  Data to Correct for Atmospheric Differences in Land Surface Temperature. She derived a split-window equation to estimate surface temperature from the Landsat 8 satellite. Landsat 8 is an important satellite to study urban heat island effect.

Difference in surface temperature between October and December. You can see in the first image that the temperatures in the United States, Croatia and Saudi Arabia are pretty warm. On December 6, 2017, there are blues and even a purple indicating that the temperatures are cold. The only place that is about the same temperature in both months is Taiwan.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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