Eclipse Data Documentation - GLOBE Data User Guide
GLOBE Data User Guide
To discover all the various ways to use GLOBE data, download the GLOBE Data User Guide (PDF) (version 2.0, effective 30 December 2022).
Learn how to access and interpret GLOBE data with this Data User Guide. Inside, members can find appendices on GLOBE's associated metadata, the types of variables available for download, primers on our different protocols and more.
GLOBE data is collected and submitted by GLOBE-trained teachers, students and citizen scientists. GLOBE also collects additional data from automated weather stations and individual data loggers. Through the hard work of these participants, over 200 million measurements have been logged into GLOBE archives and made available for public use.
Version 1.0 of the Data User Guide is available for reference.
During solar eclipses, the ability to enter current air temperature data has been/will be made available to users of the app who have not gone through GLOBE training, but are using the GLOBE Eclipse tool. For eclipses after the 2017 event, the appearance of the GLOBE Eclipse tool has been constrained geographically to roughly the area experiencing the eclipse (notes about region with each individual eclipse below.)
Air temperatures reported through the Eclipse tool (by trained or untrained users) can be distinguished by the field labeled “airtempsComments” in the API and “air temps:comments” in ADAT. Data points with comments in the format {"temp":"36.2","units":"C"} were entered via the Eclipse tool. The unit value will be C or F depending on whether the app user reported measurements in Celsius or Fahrenheit although temperatures are converted as needed and stored in Celsius only in the “airtempsCurrentTemp” or “air temps:current temp (deg C)” fields for the API/ADAT respectively. Other values in this comments field may indicate automated weather stations, such as (Phase 4 Email Data Entry), Earth Networks, or Weatherbug. Trained GLOBE users entering data via other means (online web forms or the Data Entry app, which was incorporated into GLOBE Observer for the atmosphere protocols in July 2021) also have the opportunity to enter custom comments associated with the data, including observations about current conditions.
The Eclipse tool was/will be opened to users during these four previous and one upcoming eclipse events:
Total Solar Eclipse 21 August 2017 (North America):
- Limited testing with a few data points in the database beginning 15 August, full availability for data submission 18 August through 22 August
- No geographic limitation on visibility of Eclipse tool
Total Solar Eclipse 02 July 2019 (South America):
- Data submission available on 01 July and 02 July
- Eclipse tool visibility: -65 to 20 latitude, -100 to -35 longitude
Total Solar Eclipse 14 December 2020 (South America):
- Data submission available from 07 December to 15 December
- Eclipse tool visibility: -70 to 3 latitude, -100 to -25 longitude
Annular Solar Eclipse 14 October 2023 (North, Central and South America):
- Data submission available only on 14 October
- Eclipse tool visibility: polygon represented in this GeoJSON file for 2023
Total Solar Eclipse 08 April 2024 (North and Central America):
- Data submission planned to be available from 01 April 2024 to 08 April 2024
- Eclipse tool visibility: polygon represented in this GeoJSON file for 2024