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October Urban Heat Island Observations, December underway and plans for March

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Kevin Czajkowski
Published DatePosted 12/18/23 3:24 AM - 2663 Views

The urban heat island intensive observation period (IOP) this October yielded about 25% more observations than last year. I only look at surface temperature observations since that is the protocol that I developed (with help from others) and there are many other air temperature and cloud observations in the GLOBE database that are not part of the urban heat island IOP. This October there were a total of 2353 surface temperature observations made by 115 schools. This underscores the commitment of participating schools in contributing valuable insights into surface temperature variations.

The Top 10 Schools were:

School Name

number of observations

Rank

Brazil GLOBE v-School

163

1

University Of Toledo

148

2

Saint Andrew Catholic School

96

3

Abu baker alsedik basic school

72

4

Clay High School

68

5

Team Phoenix (Five Keys Schools and Programs)

65

6

Yamama Secondary School at Riyadh

56

7

Boston University School of Education GLOBE v-School

54

8

OOU Goce Delcev

51

9

The 19th Secondary Girls School at Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah

51

9

University of Toledo GLOBE v-School

50

10

Total Observations: 2353

Samples taken by top ten schools: 874

It is noteworthy that the 10 schools that took the most observations accounted for about 25% of all of the observations. The database has gotten enough observations that students can develop research projects for the International Virtual Science Symposium (IVSS).

https://www.globe.gov/news-events/meetings_symposia/virtual-conferences

I had my undergraduate students take observations as an assignment. It seemed to work well. GLOBE now allows you to set up many student accounts. Then, the students were able to use their phones to enter their observations through the GLOBE Observer app. I provided the infrared thermometers. Here is a distribution of the observations. There are many new schools participating and many long-term schools.

 

Another interesting aspect of the October observations is that, in the United States down through Brazil, an Annular Solar Eclipse occurred. Many students, teachers and patrons at libraries took surface temperature, air temperature and cloud observations.


 

Then, in April 8, 2024, there will be a Total Solar Eclipse travel from Mexico, up through the United States into Canada. This is another great time to take observations.  

Students in my Weather and Climate class at the University of Toledo did a research project. The surface temperature for Orangeville Public Library in Utah showed almost a 6 C decrease from before to during the Annular Eclipse. That seems pretty large to me since the sun was not completely covered. That is why we do the research though, because it isn’t always obvious.


 

This year, you can start now or in March, we would like you to take observations of your school grounds. We’ve seen that some schools have artificial turf for their playgrounds, sports fields or school grounds in general. And, these surfaces are extremely hot. We are wondering how hot this makes your school grounds. Also, in the United States, seniors sometimes paint the parking space in the parking lot that they park in. Is that something in other parts of the world? How does painting a parking space change the temperature of the parking?


 

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Urban Heat Island IOP October Wrap-up

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Kevin Czajkowski
16 Nov
0
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Olawunmi Fasakin
11 Months Ago

Thank you for a good work on surface temperatures on school parks/grounds and their respective research outcomes. It should be noted that my school, St. Peter's Unity Secondary School, Akure, Nigeria took part in the March 2023 UHIE event. The submitted project was submitted and Sara M. Mierzwiak.

The copy is the response by Sara is herewith attached.

 

 

Mierzwiak, Sara Miranda 

From:sara.mierzwiak@utoledo.edu

To:Wunmi Fash

Cc:globe.mission.earth@gmail.com,Czajkowski, Kevin

 

Sun, Apr 2, 2023 at 6:37 AM

 

Hello Wunmi,

 

This is wonderful! Thank you so much for sending me this information. I will highlight it on our Urban Heat Island for Students website. You all did a great job with your research!

 

I have also cc'd Dr. Czajkowski, the lead of the Surface Temperature study. 

 

Dr. C, should we also upload this project to our GLOBE Mission EARTH website, even though it is outside of the U.S.? The deadline for the IVSS has since closed.

 

Thanks so much!

 

Sara

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Olawunmi Fasakin
11 Months Ago

This is another response

Czajkowski, Kevin 

From:kevin.czajkowski@utoledo.edu

To:Mierzwiak, Sara Miranda,Wunmi Fash

Cc:globe.mission.earth@gmail.com

Sun, Apr 2, 2023 at 9:00 AM

Yes, please upload it.

Kevin P. Czajkowski

University of Toledo

Department of Geography and Planning, MS 140

Toledo, OH 43606

419-530-4274