Results from the AmericaView/GLOBE Earth Observation Day

On April 10 and 22, 2013, students participated in the first spring Earth Observation Day sponsored by GLOBE and the AmericaView Remote Sensing Consortium.

Students took observations near their school of a grassy area and an asphalt surface.

The Earth has warmed over the last 50 years and continues to warm. In addition, over the same time period, urban areas have expanded leading to increased warming of cities exasperating summer heat waves. Satellites can observe the temperature of cities and their surrounding areas. In situ observations are needed to validate the satellite temperatures. Student observations of surface temperature can contribute to the validation of the surface temperature.

Dr. Kevin Czajkowski from the University of Toledo hosted the first spring AmericaView/GLOBE Surface Temperature field day on April 10 and 22, 2013, Earth Observation Day. On this two day event, we supported students to take surface temperature. Students entered data on the GLOBE website or they sent the data to AmericaView Director Rick Landenberger, Rick.Landenberger@mail.wvu.edu.

This year, some of the GLOBE Scientists developed videos explaining how to take surface temperature observations. Here is a video of Rick Landenberger from West Virginia University taking his surface temperature observations.

Nektaria Adaktilou, a GLOBE Scientist from the University of Athens, described how to take surface temperature observations in both English and Greek.

And, here is her instructions in Greek.

 Looking at the data

The schools that took observations during the surface temperature observation days were:

Ida Elementary School, Michigan USA

Main Street School, Ohio, USA

California University of Pennsylvania, PA, USA

West Virginia University, VW, USA

3rd Lyceum of Algaleo, Athens, Greece

Brazil High School, Trinidad and Tobago

Killingi-Nomme Gymnasium, Estonia

Here are students at Ida Elementary School taking surface temperature observations.

Ida Ts 4-23-13

Here are students at Brazil High School in Trinidad and Tobago discussing the clouds when taking their surface temperature observations.

 

AmericaView is a consortium of 36 states working together to promote the use of remote sensing and other geospatial technologies.

http://www.americaview.org/

AmericaView and GLOBE have a partnership that goes back at least 10 years. GLOBE brings the field observations and AmericaView brings in the remote sensing/geospatial technologies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wyoming Student wins 3rd Place in Science Fair

From the WyomingView Blog

http://wyomingview.blogspot.com/

Sarah’s urban heat island study wins third place in the 2013 Wyoming State Science Fair

Lake Erie Getting Ice Covered

The cold weather this last month has led to Lake Erie developing ice cover. This past week, the temperature has been averaging about 20 F (-6 C). Even with temperatures in the 50s and 60s F (10 C to 15 C), ice has formed. See the Figure 1 below.

As you can see in the picture, the ice on Lake Erie is broken up into things that look like islands. The wind blows the ice around and breaks it up. There is a straight line through Lake St. Clair that extends down into Lake Erie. What do you think caused this straight line? Usually, on Earth, straight lines are produced by humans.

Figure 1: MODIS satellites image of Lake Erie February 6, 2013.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2: MODIS satellite image of Lake Erie from January 24, 2013.

As you can see, on January 24, 2013, just two weeks ago, the Western basin of Lake Erie was ice covered and  there was some ice on the northern side of the lake. You can see that areas of Southern Ontario north of Lake Erie did not have snow on the ground on January 24, 2013 and then on February 6, 2013, there is snow.

As part of GLOBE’s Seasons and Biomes Earth System Science Program (ESSP), I have taken pictures of the Ottawa River that flows through the University of Toledo and then empties into Lake Erie. http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/spotlights/2012/globe-workshop I took pictures from the shore across the river and then from the bridge upstream and downstream.

Figure 3: GLOBE Seasons and Biomes instructions for taking pictures of ice cover.

You can see in the pictures that the river has ice along the banks. Why is the river not frozen while the lake is? Last week, the river was completely ice covered. But, when temperatures went way up and it rained, the ice melted and washed away.

Figure 4: Picture of the Ottawa River from a) across, b) upstream, and c) downstream

a) across

 

b) Upstream

 

c) downstream

 

 

Be sure to be safe around ice.

Dr. C

GLOBE Surface Temperature Field Campaign Final Report

The GLOBE Surface Temperature Field Campaign was a success once again this year. Thank you to all of the students and teachers who make this field campaign possible. And, thank you to GLOBE for supporting this type of scientific investigation. A total of 17 schools have entered data so far as of January 17, 2013 and I know that several others took observations and are working on getting their observations in. This is a smaller number of participants than the last several years when between 40 and 60 schools participated. I suspect that the change over to the new GLOBE website may have caused extra confusion and challenges. The amount of errors in the reported data seemed low which shows the diligence of the students and teachers in taking these observations.

Here are the schools that have posted observations so far.

Crestwood High School, Daerborn Heights, Michigan

Taaksi Basic School, Estonia, Thanks for participating again.

Kilingi-Nomme Gymnasium, Estonia, Thanks for participating again.

Alexander von Humbolt Gymnasium, Konstanz, Germany

The University of Toledo, This is me and my children.

Westchester Area School, Hi Trenton, it is good to see your data.

Chartiers-Houston Jr./Sr. High School, Good to see you Mr. Pop.

Burlington County Institute Of Technology, New Jersey

West Union High School, Ohio

Birchwood School, Ohio – Hi Mrs. Brown.

Lakewood Catholic Academy, Ohio – Great that you got on Mrs. McGuire

Roswell-Kent Middle School, Ohio – Hi Mr. Frantz.

Mohican School in the Out of Doors, Ohio – Hi Susan and Steve

Brazil School, Trinidad and Tobago

Main Street School, Norwalk, Ohio – Hi Mrs. Burns.

The Morton Arboretum Youth Education Department, Illinois

John Marshall High School, Glen Dale, West Virginia – Hi Mrs. Clark. Thank you for having your students participate.

Here is a view of the Eastern United States from the GLOBE visualization page showing the observations on December 13, 2012. The surface temperature was coldest near Cleveland in eastern Ohio and warmest in southern West Virginia.

The school that was most diligent was Lakewood Catholic Academy near Cleveland, Ohio. The students and teacher took surface temperature observations on every day in December including Christmas and New Years Eve. That is dedication. Please look at the time series plot below that I made from the GLOBE visualization page.

There are many things that can be done with the observations. Now that the field observations are over, students can use the observations to develop inquiry-based research projects. I want to outline some examples.

In the past, students have looked at the difference in surface temperature under different cloud conditions, between schools at different elevations and latitude, and between schools in North America vs. Europe. How does land cover affect surface temperature? How does the number of condensation trails affect surface temperature? How does surface temperature change from day to day and season to season.

Dr. C

Snowstorm across US: 2012 GLOBE Surface Temperature Field Campaign

Storm Coming Across US

If you live in the United States, you probably have heard of the snow storm crossing the country right now. There will be mountain snow in the Rockie Mountains, a potential for a blizzard from Nebraska to Wisconsin and then some snow to the Great Lakes states. The National Weather Service (NWS) definition of a blizzard is:

“A blizzard means that the following conditions are expected to prevail for a period of 3 hours or longer:

• Sustained wind or frequent gusts to 35 miles an hour or greater; and
• Considerable falling and/or blowing snow (i.e., reducing visibility frequently to less than ¼ mile)”

Some of the Surface Temperature Field Campaign participating schools will be getting snow this Friday especially the lake effect regions. The jet stream causes the storm to take this type of track. I put the jet stream and the forecast storm track in the figure below. There are two ingredients that help storms (called mid-latitude cyclones) to form east of the Rocky Mountains. The first is the boundary between hot and cold air. For this storm, there is warm weather in Texas and cold weather coming down out of Canada. The second is that when the jet stream takes air over the Rocky Mountains, the air column gets bigger on the east side of the Rockies. When the air expands, it leads to low pressure. Here is a tutorial on mid-latitude cyclones. http://www.atmos.illinois.edu/~snodgrss/Midlatitude_cyclone.html

 

Week 2 Update

The second week of the GLOBE Surface Temperature Field Campaign has come to a close. The number of schools participating is slowly increasing. I have also worked with a number of teachers this past week and with the GLOBE Help Desk, to get their students access to post data. The GLOBE Help Desk has done a wonderful job of responding to individual requests. I am hopeful that even more teachers and students join the field campaign once all of the teacher training data has been migrated into the new system. That is going on this week. I can’t imagine trying to migrate the data for 20,000 teachers and trainers from one system to another. One of the big challenges is that the teachers and trainers are trained in different protocols. Not everyone is trained in all protocols.

 

Here are the schools that have posted observations so far. 13 schools total.

Crestwood High School, Michigan

Taaksi Basic School, Estonia, Thanks for participating again.

The University of Toledo, This is me and my children.

Westchester Area School, Hi Trenton, it is good to see your data.

Chartiers-Houston Jr./Sr. High School, Good to see you Mr. Pop.

Burlington County Institute Of Technology, New Jersey

West Union High School, Ohio

Birchwood School, Ohio – Hi Mrs. Brown.

Lakewood Catholic Academy, Ohio – Great that you got on Mrs. McGuire

Roswell-Kent Middle School, Ohio – Hi Mr. Frantz.

Mohican School in the Out of Doors, Ohio – Hi Susan and Steve

Brazil School, Brazil

Main Street School, Norwalk, Ohio – Hi Mrs. Burns.

The Morton Arboretum Youth Education Department, Illinois

Here are the schools that posted data so far in the United States on Dec. 11, 2012.

 

Please be careful when entering data that the universal time is correct. Also, take a look at the visualization on the GLOBE website to make sure that the location (latitude and longitude) of your sites are correct. I have seen at least one case where I think the location is incorrect.

If you or your students have taken data and you haven’t entered it yet, please do so soon. I check over the data for any errors and let the teachers know. Okay, I’m guilty. I haven’t entered my data yet either. Below is a picture of Robby and Timmy, my kids, helping me take surface temperature observations.

Doing a Project

One thing I would like you to consider is having the students do a project with the data. There are lots of projects built into the surface temperature field campaign. Below, I have a discussion about the difference in temperature between the United States and Europe. That is a great project. The question is “Why are the temperatures different between the two continents even though the observations were taken at about the same latitude? When I was in Europe this past summer, a heat wave was going on. I asked the question, How do different paving materials affect the energy budget. I share this study early next week. I have to finish writing it up. You can look at my GLOBE trip to Europe here: http://www.globe.gov/web/kevin.czajkowski/blog?p_p_id=33&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-1&p_p_col_count=1

http://satellitesk12.org/?m=201208

 

Implications of the Observations

Looking at the observations, it is very apparent that Europe has been colder than the United States even though at this time of year, that is not normally the case. In the image below, you will notice that the temperature at Uzwil School in Switzerland is colder than any of the observations in the United States. When I visited Markus Eugster this past summer in Uzwil, I was surprised when he described the weather and climate there. He said that they get snow but that it usually does not last long. His school is to the northeast of the Alps. In the Alps, the snow falls in the fall and stays throughout the winter. But in Uzwil, it does not. These observations match what I have been seeing. In Europe and Asia, snow cover is pretty extensive. On the other hand, in the United States, the snow has been confined to the northern most states. On the day shown, Dec. 4, 2012, the surface temperature in Uzwil was 1.6 C while in the eastern United States, the schools all reported about 10 C. By Dec. 6, 2012, surface temperatures had fallen in all locations. Uzwil fell to -4.3 C while the schools in the United States reported temperatures between 0.9 and 7.2 C. The surface temperature at Brazil High School in Trinidad and Tobago on Dec. 4, 2012 was much higher than any of the others, 36.8 C.

It will be interesting to see if this pattern of cold in Europe and warm in the US persists throughout the winter. That was the pattern last winter where in the eastern United States it felt like there was no winter at all. Here is the figure of snowfall in the United States and in Europe. You can see though that since Dec. 6 there has been a lot of snowfall in the United States especially in the northern states and, most recently, in the western states. But, will it snow at my house? That is what I want to know. Will it get cold enough to make the ice rink in the back yard so we can skate?

 

Ask your students, Why is snow cover so important for the Earth? How does it affect the surface and air temperature during the day and night? How does it impact the energy budget? I get pretty geeked when there is now.

Living in southeast Michigan, the weather has been pretty warm iwht high temperatures in the 40s that last couple of days. Even with that, ice is forming on the cover of our swimming pool. The average temperature for the days has been below freezing which is forming the ice. Even though the temperature during the day goes above freezing, it is that warm for only a short period of time. The night is very long.

Keep up the great work!

Dr. C

 

 

Week 1 Update

The GLOBE surface temperature field campaign started this week with some record warm temperatures in the United States. Students in much of the United States enjoyed short sleeve weather for several days.

Schools have started to post observations on the GLOBE website. The GLOBE website has been changed dramatically over the last year. The GLOBE Program Office will be adding all teachers in a bulk transfer from the old database in the near future. Many teachers have also signed up on the GLOBE webpage http://www.globe.gov and the help desk has set them up so they can enter data. The help desk has been doing a great job managing everyone.

Here are the schools that have posted observations so far.

Burlington County Institute Of Technology, New Jersey

West Union High School, Ohio

Birchwood School, Ohio – Hi Mrs. Brown.

Lakewood Catholic Academy, Ohio – Great that you got on Mrs. McGuire

Roswell-Keny Middle School, Ohio – Hi Mr. Frantz.

Brazil School, Brazil

Main Street School, Norwalk, Ohio – Hi Mrs. Burns.

The Morton Arboretum Youth Education Department, Illinois

This is a map from the GLOBE website that shows the schools that entered surface temperature data so far on Dec. 3, 2012. Please try to have your students get your data online as soon as possible so we can trouble shoot any problems. Let me know if you run into any problems. kevin.czajkowski@utoledo.edu

As many of you know, I love snow. I love to ski and ice skate and sled. So far this winter has been a dud. There hasn’t been a lot of snow. Last winter was so warm, there was very little snow as well. As you can see in the attached figure, there is very little snow today in the lower 48 of the United States. That is the part of the United States that does not include Hawaii and Alaska. A storm recently laid down snow in Europe. The weather pattern is going to change in North America and bring the cold air from Alaska and northern Canada into the lower 48.

Seasons and Biomes Frost Tube

I have taken frost tube observations for the Seasons and Biomes GLOBE project for the past 3 years http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/spotlights/2012/globe-workshop. I tried to take an observation this morning only to find that the tube had broken and all of the water drained out. I wonder if the plastic had gotten brittle and when it froze it broken when the ice expanded. I’ll have to fix it this weekend before consistently cold temperatures arrive next week.

I hope to see your data soon.

Dr. C

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GLOBE STAR of Finland Training

GLOBE recently made a STAR out of my trip to Finland to work with GLOBE teachers and trainers there. http://www.globe.gov/news/globe-stars/starsdetail/globe/2012-finland-training

It was a great experience. If you ever have a chance to go to Finland, I think you will enjoy it.

2012 GLOBE Surface Temperature Field Campaign

GLOBE Surface Temperature Field Campaign

December 1 to December 31, 2012

The GLOBE Program will host the annual surface temperature field campaign from December 1 to December 31, 2012.  This is a great opportunity to work as a community with schools around the world on a common research project.

I will be blogging during the field campaign about the weather and also the student data. You won’t want to miss it. The blog is located at: http://satellitesk12.org  There is other information about the field campaign and past ones on the blog site as well. http://satellitesk12.org/?m=201111

For resources, go to the GLOBE website.
The GLOBE teacher’s guide has the how’s and what’s about the surface temperature protocol.

http://www.globe.gov/web/atmosphere-climate/protocols

and field guide

http://www.globe.gov/web/atmosphere-climate/overview/field-guides

The data sheets can be found off of this page.

http://www.globe.gov/web/atmosphere-climate/overview/data-sheets

Some teachers find it hard to get an infrared thermometer (IRT) to do the protocol. In the past, we have used Fluke 63. We have used Fluke 561 most recently. If you can’t find one of those, you may used a lower cost instrument. When you set up your surface temperature site, please specify the type of IRT you are using. Also, you may be able to borrow one from a heating and cooling specialist or an auto mechanic. They use them for their jobs.

As many of you know, I like to see how snow on the ground affects the surface temperature. But, that is not the only reason to participate in the field campaign. The main research question that needs to be answered is “How does surface cover affect surface temperature?” Students can set up research studies at their own school such as looking at the difference between paved and unpaved areas such as a grassy area. Or, since there will be so many schools taking surface temperature observations, students can investigate how surface temperature changes between schools. They could look at elevation, latitude and longitude, urban versus rural, proximity to water, etc. There are many research questions possible with surface temperature. Students could also look at how cloud cover or humidity affect the surface temperature.

Questions? Contact Kevin Czajkowski, 419-530-4274, kevin.czajkowski@utoledo.edu

 

GLOBE Training in Finland

On October 11, 2012 I participated in a GLOBE training in Finland. The training was organized by Liisa Virta, the country coordinator for Finland, Teresa Kenedy from from the International Division of the GLOBE Program Office located in Tyler, Texas, Laura Riuttanen, researcher of Division of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Helsinki, and Mirka Mc Intire from the US Embassy in Helsinki.

We focused on the basic Atmosphere observations.
GPS
Clouds and contrails
Precipitation (rain gauge and snow board) including pH
Water vapor (sling psychrometer)
Air temperature (max, min, current)
Surface temperature

Once we were there, it was apparent that the teachers wanted to learn about green up, green down and bud burst. So, we covered those observations as well.

We focused on modeling how the teachers could work with their students on projects. We had the teachers break into groups of 4 or 5 with 1 or 2 trainers working with them. They work for about 30 minutes to plan a short research project that they could do using the observations they had learned. The groups had to come up with a question to answer. One group wanted to see how the humidity would change from a forested area on to campus. A group of elementary teachers wanted to investigate how the clouds would be different over the land versus the ocean. Just as a coincidence, a rainbow formed that was a beautiful thing.

The teachers laughed when I pulled out a ruler to measure the snow. They said in Finland, they use meter sticks. Snow can be a meter deep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We worked in the computer lab in the Physics building. The teachers and trainers explored the GLOBE website and set each up as friends. The best thing that the teachers and trainers did was to form a working group. They spent quite a bit of time discussing how to implement GLOBE in their classroom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Liisa showed me around Helsinki the day before the training. Here she picked out mushrooms to take home. I had never seen such a variety of mushrooms. I posed in front of a ship in the harbor and took a picture of myself with a rhinocerus made out of bronze (I think).

It was a great experience.

I found Finland to be a wonderful country. The people are very friendly and it was easy to get around. Everyone in the country speaks English. I mentioned it to Liisa and she said that with only 5 million people in Finland, they have to know other languages in order to get along in the world. I was impressed. And, most of the signs and menus were in English.

Dr. C

GLOBE trip, I’m adding to this daily, please read and coment

Our Visit to the University of Cologne and IGC

Cologne, Germany

We stayed in Cologne, Germany for several days. While in Cologne, we stayed with Dr. Karl Schneider, his wonderful wife Karen and children. They are always such great hosts. Their son Karl said that he played football. I assumed he meant soccer because the people in the United States are the ones that call the game soccer. The rest of the world says football. But, I was wrong. He plays American football (in Germany). That is interesting. The younger Karl was an exchange student in the United States and played on the school’s football team. Or, I should say that he practiced. The rules in the state he lived in would not allow exchange students to play sports if they hadn’t played the sport in the home school. That is terrible to me.

The senior Karl is the Dean of the School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and he is a professor of Geography. Karl is quite modest of his accomplishments, but he is very well known and his research is top notch. He maintains his research program even when being dean which takes up a lot of his time. Karl studies remote sensing and he uses it to look at hydrology and water quality. One of his most recent studies is in India where he is working with colleagues to study runoff from the monsoon. One of his daughters went with him this past July. They are both very adventurous.

There are a couple things to note. Germany has been without a GLOBE country coordinator for a number of years now. Karl has been working to try to get Germany to more involved with GLOBE. Even without the government’s backing, some of the schools in Germany are the best schools in GLOBE, for example the Alexander von Humboldt Gymnasium that I visited. I hope that Germany can get more involved and the Karl is successful.

I gave a talk on GLOBE at the International Geographical Congress that was being held at the University of Cologne.

https://igc2012.org/frontend/index.php

My talk was attended by over 50 people. That is one of the biggest audiences that I have had in a while. The focus of my presentation was on projects. I want teachers to have their students do projects. Sometimes teachers are reluctant to have their students do projects. To some degree, it is hard for the teacher to come up with frameworks for projects such that the students learn what the teacher wants them to learn. But, if the teacher can do it, the students learn much more. I say, “Learn Science by Doing Science.” I related it to soccer (football outside of the US). Professionals play soccer and they are very good. I am a professional scientist. But, just like almost everyone had played soccer in their lives, everyone needs to do science. GLOBE, of course, is perfect for projects. I hope that GLOBE has the Student Science Symposium again at next summer’s GLOBE meeting. It is up to GLOBE Partners to make sure that students do projects and that they have the funds to go to the annual meeting.

Some things that I have noticed about Germany are that everything is very organized. The cities show little urban sprawl because where people can build houses is restricted. Also, Germany has many manufacturers. The people here complain that they purchase too many things from overseas. But, they still produce a lot of what they use.

Please take a look at my previous blog postings if you haven’t seen them already. Click on previous.

Getting from Switzerland to Cologne, Germany (by the way, I have posted below an English translation of the newspaper article to my visit to the school in Konstanz)

After our meeting with the teachers and student at the Alexander von Humboldt Gymnasium in Konstanz, Germany, we made our way up to Cologne, Germany so I could attend and present at the International Geographical Congress (IGC) meeting. I’ve posted pictures of the trip and the cities we visited. I included a little about each city so you can get a sense of the countryside.

Tirol Region of Austria

We started by going to Reutte, Austria. I was a little nervous going to Austria because most of the people do not speak English and I speak about two words of German, danke…. okay maybe just one. The nice thing about Austria is that it was very inexpensive compared to Switzerland. In Switzerland, a soda was $4.50 while in Austria it was $1.50. Diesel fuel was much less expensive as well so we filled up. We heard about a folk dance festival and decided to go. It was a night of traditional Tirol dances. Tirol is the area of Austria we were in. It was nice because it was something that the local people do and not meant for tourists. I strangely felt at home and fit right in. The middle-aged men were about the same height and build as I, wore glasses and are going bald on top in the same place as me. Some middle school students came and sat by us because they could tell we didn’t know German. They were in some of the dancing. They were very nice and wanted to practice their English with us. They told us what was going on. But, then, one of the girls wanted me to go with her to dance on the stage. I was thinking, “This is a bad idea.” But, the students brought many people on stage to dance with them. Not to make too big of a scene, I danced with them in front of all of those people. One of the mom’s took video of me dancing. I hope the camera broke and no one will ever see me dance. I hope we are able to stay in contact with the family.

Kathleen and I found a great river along the road going into Germany that has a large bed of cobble stones. The water was cold and we had a nice time wading in the river. I’m guessing that the riverbed is devoid of vegetation because the floods in the spring must scour everything away. Kathleen took some pictures of the stones while I took the surface temperature of the stones and water. You may be able to see that I had a helper. We noticed that the water was completely clear and did not seem to have any plant or animal life in it.

 

Neuschwanstein Castle

We had to stop at Neuschwanstein Castle near Fussen, Germany. It is a huge tourist trap but it is still very beautiful to see. This castle was built by Mad Kind Ludwig of Bavaria. He only lived in it for something like 170 days. It wasn’t completely finished either. The story goes that when he was about 24, he was institutionalized for being crazy. A couple of days later, he drowned in a lake in Munich, Germany with his psychiatrist. This is the castle that Walt Disney patterned the Magic Kingdom after. We didn’t see Mickey here though.

Rural southern Germany

As we drove through southern Germany north, we took the side roads instead of taking the autobahn. We went through many small towns where the road goes down to one lane. The country-side was beautiful. Germany has quite a significant amount of agriculture. I felt right at home since northern Ohio and southern Michigan where we live have a lot of agriculture as well. You may be able to see from the pictures that the barns and houses are connected. That must help to keep the people and animals warm in the winter. We stopped and took surface temperature observations just outside one of the small towns. Do you notice something out of place in the pictures? There are solar panels on almost every roof. We found out that Germany had a significant incentive program for people to put solar panels on their roofs. It just looked so out of place. But, they are also trying to generate electricity from alternative sources. Since the nuclear disaster in Japan, Germany has shut down all of it nuclear generating plants.

Along the route, there were many castles and old looking buildings. Below are pictures of Burg Harburg. We got to the castle too late to take a tour but we were able to use their restroom. Interestingly, the highway goes through a tunnel under the castle. As you may guess, most castles are on hills. I was surprised to see the road go under it.

Dinkelsbühl- the walled city

Dinkelsbuhl is a nice old village that is a walled city from the Middle Ages. My understanding is that the wall helped keep the people in the city safe from people who may want to hurt them. Dinkelsbuhl is named after a wheat farmer. Wheat can be called dinkel. There are towers around the city and there is water (i.e. mote) just outside the wall to make it hard to attack. One of the coolest surfaces I found on our trip was in Dinkelsbuhl. It was the traditional paving stones with grass growing in between. From what I understand, none of Dinkelsbuhl was destroyed during the world wars so much of the buildings are over 500 years old.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Our next stop was the walled city of Rothenburg. It is on the Tauber River and since there are more than one Rothenburgs in Germany, you need to specify which one it is. Rothenburg is much larger than Dinkelsbuhl. The wall was added to three separate times as the city grew. There are many fountains in the city with water running all of the time. We learned that the fountains were built hundreds of years ago. Since Rothenburg is on a plateau, there is no natural source of water. The Tauber River is several hundred feet below. So, the ingenious people pipe water from nearby hills (mountains) Since the hills are higher in elevation than the city, the pressure pushes the water through the fountains. It is really cool. During the Middle Ages, the people of the city had to keep the source of their water secret so people couldn’t sabotage their drinking water source.

Cologne, Germany

The last part of our trip to Cologne took us nearly twice and long as it should have. Traffic was horrible because people were heading off on vacation and there was an accident. Cologne is a beautiful city located on the Rhine River. The Rhine is famous for its castles and vineyards. The climate is perfect for growing grapes for wine. We stayed with our friends Karen and Karl Schneider. Herr Schneider as he is known here is the Dean of the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Cologne. I’ll write more about Cologne and the IGC meeting tomorrow.

Chris and Sebastian from the Alexander von Humboldt Gymnasium had a

newspaper article published about my visit. That is really special.

http://www.suedkurier.de/region/kreis-konstanz/konstanz/Hoher-Besuch-aus-den-USA;art372448,5657389

Professor honours students of the Humboldt Gymnasium

The American Kevin Czajkowski visited the Humboldt Gymnasium and honours the student for their scientific work.

In the middle of the summer vacation the high school Alexander-von-Humboldt Gymnasium was visited by a professor from the US who appeared to be quite taken with the work of this school. Prof. Kevin Czajkowski and his wife visited the GLOBE study group (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment). In this study group lower grade students aged 11-14 analyze the water of the River Rhine and collect data on the weather daily. This data is subsequently uploaded to the GLOBE website (www.globe.gov). There the data is available to be used in research. With the help of the study group, students are not only introduced to experimental methods used in science but also learn that scientific work can only be successful if data are collected regularly over a longer period of time. In a press release it was said that since the GLOBE study group had been set up by teacher Christoph Goldstein in 2008 it had worked its way up to one of those schools which, within Germany, has uploaded the most data. Also on a worldwide scale Alexander-von-Humboldt Gymnasium is one of the most active schools concerning data collection. Worldwide there are over 25,000 schools within the GLOBE network.

During his visit Professor Kevin Czajkowski, who teaches meteorology at Toledo University, Ohio and is one of the GLOBE scientists, complimented the students of the GLOBE study group and the teachers Christoph Goldstein and Sebastian Haber on the excellent work that had been done for the GLOBE program. Nicolai Scherer, 7^th grader and GLOBE student at Humboldt Gymnasium, demonstrated water analyses to the guests and welcomed suggestions for further analyses. As a present Professor, Kevin Czajkowski gave the GLOBE study group school an infrared thermometer, which can be used for further series of measurements.  www.humboldt-konstanz.de   http://www.humboldt-konstanz.de/schule/00025/00134/index.html?lang=de

August 20, 2012: Visit to Alexander von Humboldt school in Konstanz, Germany

On Monday I visited the Alexander von Humboldt Gymnasium in Konstanz, Germany. It is a small part of Germany that is south of Lake Constance. Lake Constance is a beautiful lake with quite clean water. What is unique about Konstanz is that it would seem that it should be part of Switzerland. But, it isn’t. I met with Chris Goldstein, Chris’ wife Marlene, Sebastian Haber (the new GLOBE teacher at the school) and Nikoli (a 7^th grade student). This is a great GLOBE school. They are one of the most prolific at taking observations in all of the world. They take hydrology observations in Lake Constance that is just a few steps from the school. Nikoli showed us how he takes the measurements. He has taken measurements all during his summer break. He is very proficient for a 7th grader. Actually, he is very proficient for any grade. I wish my graduate students would be as thorough. I hope they don’t read this . The students take GLOBE observations in the extra period which is recess. They also observe the clouds and the weather information from a weather station on the roof. As with many GLOBE schools, if they had it at ground level, it would get vandalized.

I showed them how to take surface temperature measurements and we went outside and took some. Their school is in the city so there is very little grass. In the pictures below, you can see Nikoli and myself taking the surface temperature readings on the stone play area. The paved playing area (1 on the image below) that the students play on was 38.2 C on average while the nearby grass (2) was 30.9 C. This is closer than the other measurements I have made. By the way, skies were clear except for 4 short-lived contrails for the grass site.

It was great meeting everyone at the school and I hope that we have a productive future working together through GLOBE.

Our travels have taken us into a star pattern. Over the next several days we are going to make our way up to Cologne, Germany for the International Geographical Union meeting there. I am also going to meet with Karl Schneider who is a professor at the University of Cologne and Anna Heyne-Mudrich who is a teacher.

These pictures are of the area around Lake Constance. This is a very agricultural area with large orchards of apple trees. I read that many of the apples from here are put into McDonalds Happy Meals (the ones with the apple slices). It is interesting that the trees are very short and are grown like grape vines in a way but about twice as tall. Also, the farmers put a netting over the trees. I’m guessing it is to either keep bugs or birds from eating the apples. In the middle picture, the netting is the black rows in the background. The first picture is of a community garden in eastern Switzerland. Every village seems to have one or more of these community gardens. There are lots of sheds in the gardens which you can see. My wife and I had a section in a community garden when we lived in an apartment in Greenbelt, Maryland just after we got married. It was a lot of fun and we got some nice vegetables from it. What’s interesting in Switzerland, is that the houses have very small plots of land around them. Then, to have a garden, the people have to go to a community garden. In many parts of the United States, our yards are big enough to have nice sized gardens.

More Glacier Pictures

Kathleen and I took a couple hundred pictures of the glacier. I thought  I would share a few more. Take a look at all of the gray ice. That is the old glacier melting. The white snow is the snow that fell last winter. So, in general, the Mount Titlis glacier is melting back.

Here are some other things to note about how the attraction is unsustainable. There is a watch store at the top of the mountain. The urinals in the men’s room are flush toilets instead of the no-flush ones. They also made a cave under the glacier that wasn’t there. They dug it out. It was really neat to go into but is it necessary.

We took surface temperature measurements at the base of Mount Titlis, part way up and at the top. A research question that can be asked is “How does surface temperature change with elevation?” You could also then relate that to the air temperature. The rate at which the temperature changes from the surface to the typical height above the surface, i.e. 2 m, changes with elevation above sea level.  This image shows the location of the different surface temperature observations that I took. I tried to take grass and pavement observations at each elevation. However, there was no grass at 3000 m.

Engelberg, 1060 m  1. asphalt 45.0 C  2. grass  29.1 C

Trubsee, 1800 m  3. gravel 40.2   4. grass  29.1 C

Mt. Titlis 3200 m 5. snow -0.5  6. gravel 2.4 C rocks 17.2 C  7. snow -0.2 C

All of the observations were taken we it was completely clear and quite hot. This was the hottest day in 100 years we were told by some Swiss people. As you can see, the grass temperature was the same at 1060 m and 1800 m while the gravel was cooler than the asphalt which may be expected. The gravel at 3200 m is a lot colder even though the air temperature was 14 C. Interestingly, the bare rocks that are not on top of snow were quite hot at 17.2 C. I can image that if the glacier melts, it exposes bare rock which can get quite hot in the sunshine. In the GLOBE database, there are many surface temperature observations at different elevations. Students could ask the question of how surface temperature changes with elevation while keeping other variables the same like latitude, surface cover and air temperature.

August 19, 2012

We went to a glacier in central Switzerland. It is a tourist attraction. It was the most unsustainable tourist place I have been to in my life. Usually, at tourist places, they try to have you do things that preserve the site. In the United States at the parks, you are not allowed to take anything away. Dunes are protected at the parks that have dunes along Lake Michigan, etc. But, here, there are thousands of tourists walking on the glacier, there is a cave that they carved out of the glacier, there is even a sledding area. The sledding area may not be too bad because it is on fresh snow that feel this winter. When you look at the pictures, the white snow fell last winter. If the ice is dark, that is the glacier. The day that we went, it was one of the hottest days in Switzerland history. We measured 37 C (99 F) on our car thermometer. On the glacier, it was 14 C (57 F). The sun was shining brightly and the snow and ice was melting rapidly. The people who work here are very concerned about the melting of the glacier. They said that there has been a lot of melt back in the last decades and that the glacier is getting smaller.

In the pictures, you will see white felt canvas laid over the ice and snow. It looks like they are trying to keep the ice from melting in strategic locations along the glacier. They also have a snow maker at the top of the glacier. I talked to two of the young workers on the glacier. One was from England and the other from Switzerland. You can see their picture below. They were putting up fence posts on the edge of the glacier. I’m guessing that did not want anyone to fall off. That looked like a dangerous job. If they went 2 meters back, they would fall 1000 meters down the mountain. They said that the people who run the mountain are trying to come up with ways to preserve the ice and snow. Making snow could be one of them but the hard part is getting water to the summit in the winter. I don’t know if there is some way to store the water up there.

Do you have any suggestions of what they can do to preserve the glacier? Please post them under comments.

 

 

August 18, 2012

Today Markus had a GLOBE teacher training. There were 8 teachers at the training and I could tell that they were all very engaged. His topic today was ice and snow associated with the Seasons and Biomes Project of GLOBE. Markus talked about GLOBE in general and the Student Climate Research Campaign. Then, I introduced the surface temperature field campaign that is going to run from December 1-31, 2012. Markus is planning on having his class participate in the surface temperature field campaign. I hope that some of the other teachers do as well.

I asked the teachers to break into groups of two and to develop a research question that they wanted to research using the infrared thermometers. The teachers really took change. They talked in their groups for about five minutes. I didn’t have to say anything and they got up and went outside to do their research. One group looked at the difference in temperature between leaves on a tree in the sun and some in the shade. Another group looked at the temperature of cars. They found that the white cars were 45 C while the black cars were 60 C. If you want a cooler car, choose a white one. Tanya and Mara took the temperature of the water pool and found it to be about 17 C. I thought that was cold but they did not.

Markus talked about how glaciers are receding in the Alps. It was all in German so I did not understand it all. I did my best though. He had the teachers do experiments with rocks on a chunk of ice that they melted with a heat lamp and they all set up their GLOBE frost tubes.

Take a look at the pictures to see if you see anything strange. Let me know if what you notice in the comments below.

Markus said that the teacher workshop was sponsored by his Canton, St. Gallen. There are 26 Cantons in Switzerland. I’ve heard that the government of Switzerland is based on the United States. I gather that the Cantons are the equivalent of states in the US. You may know that Switzerland has four official languages, German (Swiss German to be more precise), French, Italian and Romansh. The official language of the St. Gallen Canton is German. Most people here speak enough English for us to get along. The only problem we had on our trip was at the border from Germany. We did not know what a Zoll was. I figured a toll but wasn’t sure. The guy at the border yelled at me because I did not speak German.

After the workshop, Kathleen and I drove up to the mountains. I had it in my head that Switzerland was all mountains. It was a surprise to me but all of Switzerland is not mountains. It is all hilly, but the hills near Uzwil are pretty small.

We must have brought the hot weather with us. It is 32 C as we drove through Urdorf, Switzerland. Interestingly, Markus was talking about how hot days like these that melt the glaciers in the Alps. This is the hottest day that they have had in Switzerland this year. Then, Saturday, Aug. 18, the temperature reached 37 C (about 100 F). That is a hot temperature anywhere.

I’ll post more about the glacier on Mount Titlis tomorrow.

Where we have been so far

I put together a map of where we have been so far using Google maps. You may notice that it is in German. Google maps seems to be picking up that I am in Switzerland and is making the map in German. I’ll try to update this whenever we go somewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Data Analysis

On August 17 after visiting with Markus’ classes, Markus’ wife Esther took Kathleen and I to St. Gallen. It is a nice quaint town on the eastern side of Switzerland. It is the town that Esther grew up in. There is an old part of the city that used to be surrounded by a wall during the Middle Ages. That part of town is still there. On the day that we went, everyone was preparing for a festival in the old part of town. One of the nice things to do in Europe is to visit the very old churches. That is what we did. I didn’t know that the churches often have clocks on them. At the church, Esther helped me take surface temperature observations at 4 locations around the church: 1. paving stones, 2, paving stones in the shade, 3. grass, and 4. slate slabs. These observations were taken around 3 pm and the sky was completely clear. After averaging the 9 temperatures according to the GLOBE protocol, the temperatures were as follows:

1. paving stones: 34.0 C

2. paving stones in the shade: 23.6 C

3. grass: 31.4 C

4. slate slabs: 45.2 C

As you can see, the slate slab was by far the hottest. Interestingly, the paving stones which seem to be a more traditional way of making side walks and roads here is nearly as cool as the grass. If you look back to the observations that we took around the hotel in Frankfurt, you can see that in this case, the grass and slate slabs have a similar difference in temperature, 13 C, while in Frankfurt, the difference was 11 C. I really find it interesting that the traditional paving stones have nearly the same temperature as grass. Maybe we have stumble on a way to keep urban heat island at bay. At, it will employ a lot of pavers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August 17, 2012

Today I went to Uzwil Secondary School with Markus Eugster. In the picture below are the courtyard of the school, the phenology cameras that Markus has looking at the vegetation and the start of his GLOBE phenological garden. The phenological garden is broken into four pieces, winter, spring, summer and fall. I found out that the schools name is just Uzwil Secondary School. Markus said that it is nothing fancy.

I met with two classes and it was a great time.  The first class was a geography class taught by Daniel Zahner. He is a good sport. He posed with the monkey. I asked the students what geography was. They told me it had to do with the earth and why things are where they are. I told them that Toledo, Ohio where the University of Toledo  is (the place where I work) was founded because it was a good port on the Great Lakes. I asked them why Uzwil was where it is. Once astute student said that it was a mid-way point where travelers could stop along the road.

A teacher in Toledo, Melody Tspranis wanted me to ask the students about the snow in the Alps last winter. The students told me that there was lots of snow and that there was no drought like the one in the United States. If anyone else has a question for the people that I meet along the way, please post it in the comments.

I talked to the class about the surface temperature field campaign and I showed them the infrared thermometers. Markus has a set of five IRTs from Cason that he plans to use this December. I am so grateful to have dedicated teachers to work with on the surface temperature field campaign. I explained to the students how land cover can affect surface temperature. One of the students said that a parking lot will be warmer than grass in general.

That’s all for now.

Kevin

August 16, 2012

Yesterday after we arrived in Frankfurt, we walked around the city. It is an amazing city. It is big enough that there is a lot of business but it is small enough that the streets are not clogged with cars. Maybe one of the reasons is that so many people ride bicycles. There were bikes everywhere. Sometimes the people walking have to be careful not to get run over by the bikes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went down to the old part of Frankfurt which is near the River Main. The old town area is very cool to visit. I found it interesting that much of the old town had to be rebuilt after World War II. The allies bombed the city destroying many buildings. I found some images from 1927 and 1947 that I’ve included with a picture that I took yesterday. You can see that a couple of the churches survived the war. The picture from 1927 was probably used to recreate the buildings that are standing today to reconnect the area with the past.

 

Frankfurt also has one of Germany’s best underground rail systems. Kathleen and I went down into the underground for a little while. We went to a grocery store and bank underground. It was amazing.

Just beyond the old town is the River Main and the Eisener Steg bridge. There are thousands of locks locked to the bridge. Couples have put them there and many of the locks of the people’s names engraved on them. That is a really neat idea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The one bad thing that I can say about Frankfurt is that it has some bad odors. Frankfurt is not unlike others cities. It seems like all large cities have smells.

Today, we drove to Switzerland to meet up wit GLOBE people there.  We were suppose to meet with Juliette Vogel, the GLOBE country coordinator for Switzerland, but on our drive down, we got turned around on the Autabahn (Germany’s highway system) and ended up going an hour and a half out of our way. Juliette had to catch a train to go home from Zurich, so we were not able to meet.

After driving through Zurich, Kathleen and I made our way to Markus Eugster’s house in Uzwil, Switzerland. Markus is a good GLOBE friend. He is a teacher at the ? Okay, I realized I don’t know the name of Markus’ school. I am going there tomorrow. I better learn it. He teachers 7^th through 8^th grade science and math from what I know. In the picture are Markus and two of his three sons, Michael and Simon. I’m the guy on the left.

 

 

Please post comments to my blog here. I would like to see what people have to say.

Field Experiment in Frankfurt, Germany.

On the first day that Kathleen and I were in Germany, we conducted a surface temperature field experiment around the hotel we were staying at. We chose 3 sites for our experiment: 1. a brick sidewalk in front of the hotel, 2. a grassy area behind the hotel and 3. a pond with a fountain behind the hotel. We took all of the observations with 10 minutes and cloud cover did not change, overcast with altocumulus and cumulus clouds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The average temperatures were as follows:

1. Brick side walk: 35.3 C   2. Grass:  24.3 C    3. pond: 23.2 C (shown in yellow in the image from Google Earth).

I could actually feel the warmth radiating off of the bricks. I was somewhat surprised how hot they were given the cloudy day that we had. I thought it was interesting as well that the pond and grass were about the same temperature. The grass was not shadowed by the building when I took the measurements.

Kevin

August 15, 2012

My wife Kathleen and I have come to Europe as part of my sabbatical at the University of Toledo to meet with GLOBE partners and teachers. My goal is to promote awareness of the surface temperature field campaign which is part of GLOBE’s Student Climate Research Campaign (SCRC) this year and which will be held in December. I am also promoting projects. Teachers should work with their students to do science investigations (projects) based on GLOBE observations.

We left Detroit, Michigan (the airport closest to our house near Toledo, Ohio) yesterday, August 14^th at about 5:30 pm. We landed in Frankfurt, Germany at about 8 am local time on August 15^th. This was an overnight (red-eye) flight. Everyone is suppose to sleep on the plane. Here is a picture of me with my monkey neck pillow. I love my monkey pillow.

We are really tired today because we did not get much sleep last night. There is a 6 hour time difference. When it is 8 am here and everyone is waking up, it is 2 am where we live. Everyone is asleep.

We will be first driving to Zurich, Switzerland tomorrow to visit Juliette Vogel who is the GLOBE country coordinator for Switzerland. After the meeting, we will head over to Uzwil, Switzerland which is on the eastern side of the country. We will be staying with Markus Eugster and his wife. I’ll visit his classroom and then help out with a teacher training on Saturday. From there, we will visit the mountains of Switzerland. I want to see how the temperature of different land cover types and elevations affects surface temperature.

Then, we will go to Konstanz, Germany to visit teachers from the von Humbolt school. This is one of the top GLOBE schools in the world. They have posted x amount of data. It is only a 45 minute drive from Uzwil.

Here is our itinerary:

Frankfurt, Germany

Zurich, Switerland

Uzwil, Switerland

Engelberg, Switzerland

Konstanz, Germany

Reutte, Austria

Dinkelsbuhl, Germany

Rothenberg, Germany

Cologne, Germany

Athens, Greece

Then, home

I hope to blog a lot along the way.

We’ve rented a car and will driving to all of the above locations. It just seemed easier than to try to catch the train although Europeans like to take the train.

Kathleen started to drive first. The car has a manual transmission. There aren’t many cars with manual transmissions in the United States any more. Kathleen hadn’t driven one in 15 years or more. Let’s just say she was a little rusty.

We’ve seen some familiar things in Frankfurt: Starbucks, Subway, McDonalds…. And even a jewelry store selling jewelry from Arizona made of Turquoise.

 

The hotel we are staying at in Frankfurt is near the central business district. Our hotel is 50 meters from the Borse Stock Exchange, 800 m from the European Central Bank. If I was a country in need of money, I could go there to get a loan.

The proximity to the banks probably explains why our hotel room is so expensive. A bottle of water in the hotel is 5 which is about $6.

One thing that Kathleen and I noticed from the plane when we are flying over Germany is that people tend to live in small villages with their houses clustered together with few houses in the agricultural areas and forested areas. This is a big difference with the United States. Many people in the US want to live on 5-10 acre properties. This has caused the cities in the US to sprawl, called urban sprawl. It is one of the main reasons that the US cities are warming up due to the urban heat island effect. On my trip, I hope to learn more about central Europe’s cities and whether they are seeing the urban heat island effect like the US cities are.

Wow, it’s hot!

It continues to be really hot in the central part of the US. The thermometer at our house says 98 F (37 C) today which is July 4, 2012. The number of 90 F (32 C) plus days this year has been high as well. There have been 8 days about 90 F (32 C) a my house in Temperance, MI so far this June and July. Toledo has had 12 days 90 F (32 C).

Last week I took some surface temperature observations using the GLOBE protocol for infrared thermometer. I measured the temperature of a parking lot with a cover of asphalt, a grassy area and an area with bare soil where the ground had been dug up. Which one do you think was the hottest? The grass was 34 C (94 F), the asphalt was 52 C (126 F) and the bare soil was 64 C (148 F). I didn’t expect the bare soil to be so hot.

NASA has produced a temperature anomaly image from satellite imagery (see below). The red shows areas where the temperature was above average and the blue shows temperatures below average for June 28, 2012. You can see that a large part of the US was red, above average.

This heat has dried things out as well. I have been watering my garden every day. I really enjoy growing our own food. I knew it was dry because there was an area of the garden that the sprinkler missed watering. In that spot, even the weeds were dried up.

The Palmer Drought Severity Index in the image below shows that large parts of the United States are in drought right now. In fact, in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan where I live, we have severe to extreme drought conditions.

Yesterday, a friend of mine posted on Facebook that he saw a fire in the forest near his house in Michigan. In this dry, hot weather, brush fires can easily start anywhere. He called 911 for the fire department to put it out. That was a wise thing to do. If you come upon a similar situation, tell an adult and/or call 911.

The fires in Colorado are related to this dry weather. The satellite image below from the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite shows the current fires out west from NASA. Colorado has clouds over the mountains so the smoke from the fires is not visible.

Why is it so hot? The upper atmosphere has been stuck in a pattern with a ridge over the center part of the US (see image below). This is a common summer time pattern with troughs over the western and eastern US. But, this summer it has been particularly persistent and hot. The troughs on the east and west coasts have kept those locations relatively cool. This image is the 500 mb map that is about 10 km (6 miles) above sea level. It is made by the National Weather Service using balloon observations at 0 UTM and 12 UTM

Stay cool. Stay in the shade if you are outside and drink lots of water. Heat stroke is very serious.
Dr. C

Posted June 29, 2012
Today was one of the hotter days that we have had in Toledo in a long time. The maximum temperature was 97 F (36 C). It is hot from the Rockies all the way to the east coast of the United States. On Sunday and Monday of this week, I was in Boulder, Colorado. The temperature reached 104 F (40 C) on Monday. What was interesting was that people were still out exercising or talking on the street. I had a really hard time believe that they could do it. But, to be honest, although it was hot, it did not seem oppressively hot. The reason was that the relative humidity was about 10%. The relative humidity is the ratio of the actual amount of water vapor in the air to the amount of water vapor the air can hold given its temperature. Warm air holds more water vapor than cold air with the amount increasing exponentially as temperatures get warmer. No wonder the relative humidity was so low. It was partly due to the temperature being so high and partly due to the low amount of water vapor in the air. Today in Toledo, the temperature was 95 F (35 C) but it felt much hotter. The relative humidity was about 40%. That means there was quite a bit of water vapor in the atmosphere. 40% relative humidity would still be considered pretty dry.

Below are the warnings on Friday, June 29, from the National Weather Service. You can see that there are large areas that are red in the image are heat warnings or fire warnings over large areas of the central US.

In Toledo, it is quite dry as well. The grass is all brown. In fact, the National Weather Service office has issued a fire warning for the area. This area is not known for its wildfires. You probably have heard by now of the devastating wild fires that are going on in Colorado. They have gotten worse since I came back. .

The forecast is for the heat wave to continue.

GLOBE Climate Video Competition Extended

5 March 2012

Dear Partner,
The GLOBE Program is challenging GLOBE schools from around the world to share their climate explorations and research through video. We are pleased to announce an extension of the submission deadline to 31 March 2012, due to overwhelming response. If you have not reminded your teachers to participate, now would be an excellent time to forward them information about the competition.
Winning videos will be highlighted as a part of the GLOBE Earth Day and Anniversary celebration. All videos submitted will become a part of the GLOBE Program YouTube channel.
Full details for video creation and submission are available here.
If you have any questions please contact climatecampaign@globe.gov. We hope to hear from you and your teachers soon!

Sincerely,
Donna Charlevoix and the GLOBE Science & Education Team

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