Resources for Integrating Data

Resources for Integrating Data

Investigations using Cloud Data

There are a variety of investigations that can be done using cloud data. Integrating additional data can help tell a more complete story than clouds alone. For example, using cloud data and photos in conjunction with aerosol measurements can provide evidence of air pollution or fire events. 

Clouds are related to aerosols in the following ways. 

  • Aerosols can act as cloud condensation nuclei.
  • Aerosols can change the following aspects of cloud observations
    • sky color
    • visibility

Example

The video, Wildfire Observations on GLOBE using the Clouds Protocol, describes how to find cloud observations that indicate the presence of smoke and use them to investigate wildfire impacts on air quality by integrating additional data.

 

Links to Publicly Available Data Sources

Publicly available data can be used in conjunction with GLOBE observations to tell a more complete story about events. The following sources of data are publicly available. 

  • AerosolWatch - This NOAA site can be used to select specific dates and parameters including smoke and fire and aerosol optical depth. You can get true color images and VIIRS images. The aerosols data are column data from satellites which can complement ground-based data or be compared with other column data. You can not download data from this site. This is only available for the United States.
  • Worldview - This NASA website presents worldwide satellite imagery organized by data type and event type. The aerosols data are column data. You can also download data from the site. 
  • EPA Fire and Smoke Map - This website shows a visualization of PM2.5 data from permanent and temporary monitors as well as low-cost sensors such as PurpleAir across North America.  Options include, smoke plumes, large fire incidents and satellite detected fires. This is also only available in real-time. You can not select previous dates and times. You also can not download data. 

Additional Information

The Investigating GLOBE Air Quality from the Ground, to Clouds to Satellites Webinar Series on the Observations Related to Aerosols - Videos page gives examples of projects that integrate data from some of the sources on this page.