Chandra Clarke

Offering Whatever Light I Can

Watch the Leaves Turn with Season Spotter

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Project: Season Spotter

The changing of the seasons has a somewhat romanticized connotation (I mean, who doesn’t love cuddling up with some apple cider in the fall, or breaking out their sandals on the first warm day of spring?), but from a biological point of view, the timing of these natural cycles is extremely significant. The study of the timing of seasonal changes in plants is called phenology, and it can tell us a lot about climate change and weather patterns. Ultimately, scientists hope to use data relating to phenology to produce forecasts that would be useful for conservation, tourism, agriculture, and public health.

Though data collection in the field of phenology isn’t too complex (observers simply note the flowering, leafing, and fruiting of trees, shrubs, and plants), in the past it’s been somewhat constrained by the physical and time limitations of researchers–humans can only reach certain locations, at certain times of day, with relative infrequency. Thankfully modern technology has produced cameras that can be placed in a large variety of locations–some rather more remote than research teams could regularly access–and can be programed to take pictures as frequently as needed to see when plants around the world are showing signs of seasonal change.

However, while technology can be harnessed for amazing tasks in the scientific world, sometimes there’s no substitute for a pair of human eyes. But where are researchers supposed to get the manpower needed to sort through and classify the hundreds of thousands of images taken by these cameras? That’s a questions that a team of scientists and educators at Harvard University and at the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) have answered with Season Spotter.

Season Spotter is an extremely simple concept, and very user-friendly. In fact, of all of the citizen science websites and programs I’ve tried out, this may be one of the quickest to get the hang of! You simply choose a challenge to work on (they usually have a few options up, such as the “fall challenge,” running now), and the site offers you a photo of a landscape. There will be a few questions about each picture: “can you see flowers on the shrubs?,” “are there any animals in the photo?,” etc. You answer a few questions about each photo, submit, and that’s that! Then researchers can use the data you submit to classify the photo and study where and when plants are in bloom around the world. You do not have to create an account or log into the site, but it’s encouraged so they can give you credit for your contributions (this also helps program coordinators track who’s using the site, etc.).

You can hop on Season Spotter for five minutes and classify one or two photos, or log on for an hour or two at a time. The simplicity and  accessibility of the project makes it a great choice if you’re looking for a way to get involved in some meaningful citizen science, but don’t have a ton of time to devote to training and participation each week. If you’d like more information about the project, or to get in touch with program coordinators, you can find their contact information here.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Don’t Just Talk About The Weather… Document It.

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Photo credit: Public domain image via Wikipedia Commons.

Project: iSeeChange: The Almanac

For decades, anyone who relies on the weather for a living has depended on almanacs, those annual calendars with weather statistics and tables, to roughly predict the current weather. But with climate change making patterns harder and harder to suss, a new project called iSeeChange wants you to help document what’s going on to create a living almanac.

Started by Julia Kumari Drapkin at the Colorado public station KVNF, the project is going nation wide, and is designed to combine citizen science, public media, and satellite and sensor monitoring of environmental conditions. Specifically, the project is joining forces with the NASA mission Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2, to provide “ground truth” or ground-level observations in conjunction with satellite measurements of CO2 levels.

“Combining these two perspectives—a global view of the earth from space and a granular view from individuals on the ground—offers an unprecedented opportunity to match big science with daily life, and surface hidden patterns and stories.”

To participate, you simply need to create a login for the site, and post what you have noticed going on in your area. This might be an observation about the arrival of the first dandelions being very early, or the fact that you have noticed several bird species overwintering that never have before. You could also write about what’s thriving or not in your garden, how the local frog and toad population seems to be faring, and so on.

The site has a trailer on the Get Involved page that helps to illustrate the project’s purpose. For more information, you can also contact Julia at iseechange@kvnf.org.

 

 

 

Data Rescue

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Photo Credit: Niklas Bildhauer via Wikiamedia Commons
Photo Credit: Niklas Bildhauer via Wikiamedia Commons

Project: Data Rescue @ Home

Pity the poor, unloved bit of historical data: Unloved, unanalysed, and *gasp* analog, instead of digital. Brother, can you spare some time?

The Data Rescue @ Home project would like your help in digitizing historical weather data, to help researchers better understand climate change. The project is currently working with two historical data sources: German radiosonde data from the Second World War and meteorological station data from Tulagi (Solomon Islands) from the first half of the 20th century.

The WWII data includes measurements from Germany, France, Danmark, Italy, Poland, Austria and Estonia. Geodynamic height, temperature and relative humidity were recorded from 1000 hPa to 50 hPa.

The Tulagi data measurements include air pressure, dry and wet bulb temperature, maximum and minimum temperature, humidity, wind direction and speed, cloud cover, weather, and precipitation amount.

According to the website, “The old data are expected to be very useful for different international research and reanalysis projects (e.g. the Twentieth Century Reanalysis, new surface temperature datasets), and the prolongation of the currently available observational series into the past is of crucial importance for our understanding of the climate system.”

The project is a joint effort between the University of Bern and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

To participate, simply use the registration link at the top of the project’s website, and start digitizing/transcribing the data presented. You’ll be doing valuable work to help us deal with one of the most urgent problems of the 21st century.