ALBERT

Description: Citizen science is often recognized for its potential to directly engage the public in science, and is uniquely positioned to support and extend participants’ learning in science. In March 2018, the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program, NASA’s largest and longest-lasting citizen science program about Earth, organized a month-long event that asked people around the world to contribute daily cloud observations and photographs of the sky (15 March–15 April 2018). What was considered a simple engagement activity turned into an unprecedented worldwide event that garnered major public interest and media recognition, collecting over 55,000 observations from 99 different countries, in more than 15,000 locations, on every continent including Antarctica. The event was called the “Spring Cloud Challenge” and was created to 1) engage the general public in the scientific process and promote the use of the GLOBE Observer app, 2) collect ground-based visual observations of varying cloud types during boreal spring, and 3) increase the number and locations of ground-based visual cloud observations collocated with cloud-observing satellites. The event resulted in roughly 3 times more observations than during the historic and highly publicized 2017 North American total solar eclipse. The dataset also includes observations over the Drake Passage in Antarctica and reports from intense Saharan dust events. This article describes how the challenge was crafted, outreach to volunteer scientists around the world, details of the data collected, and impact of the data.

Description: In January 1997, the Students’ Cloud Observations Online (S’COOL; http://scool.larc.nasa.gov) project began with NASA scientists visiting rural Gloucester, Virginia, to observe clouds with middle school students. In the nearly 20 years since, this educational outreach component of NASA’s Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) mission has collected ∼144,500 observations from every continent and ocean basin around the world. Thousands of students, educators, and cloud-watching enthusiasts have participated in S’COOL. More than half of S’COOL observation reports correspond to one or more CERES overpasses. A thorough analysis of collocated S’COOL and satellite data were conducted during summer 2015. Results showed that the S’COOL community reports high-quality observations providing useful insights on the strengths and shortcomings of passive cloud remote sensing from space. This reconfirms the utility of S’COOL observations to the scientific community and enables deeper insight into challenges associated with validation of space-based cloud property retrievals. To maintain long-term participation, S’COOL has added components that involve participants directly with science data analysis, strengthening ties to CERES research and deepening engagement. Whenever possible, the S’COOL team sends corresponding subsets of CERES data for the participant to compare to their report. Observations can now be matched to images and cloud retrievals from multiple satellites and instruments. Recent connections to geostationary data make cloud observations at almost any time of day over nonpolar regions useful for validation. This attention to inviting participants into an authentic science experience is key to the long-term success of the project.

Description: In recent years, an education plan has been a required part of most proposals for new scientific research funding from NASA. Likewise, the National Science Foundation considers “integration of research and education” as one of its principal strategies. As a result, many scientists are seeking effective ways to incorporate education into their work. This article shares important lessons learned by one group of scientists embarking on outreach efforts. Experience with the Students' Cloud Observations On-line (S'COOL) Project, the educational outreach portion of the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) investigation, yields lessons that may help other scientists to develop useful outreach efforts. CERES scientists developed S'COOL over a 15-month period, with direct involvement and feedback from teachers. S'COOL has continued to evolve, thanks to ongoing feedback from participants. As a result, the project has been quite successful, currently involving over 1400 registered participants in 61 countries around the world. Student reports of cloud conditions help scientists verify their cloud property retrieval algorithms and allow students to obtain and analyze real scientific data. A number of educational materials, including an extensive multilingual Web site, have been developed to help teachers and students understand the research questions and the challenges of working with global remote-sensing datasets.

Description: The first Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument will be launched on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) spacecraft from a Japanese launch site in November 1997. This instrument is a follow-on to the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) begun in the 1980's. The instrument will measure the radiation budget - incoming and outgoing radiant energy - of the Earth. It will establish a baseline and look for climatic trends. The major feature of interest is clouds, which play a very strong role in regulating our climate. CERES will identify clear and cloudy regions and determine cloud physical and microphysical properties using imager data from a companion instrument. Validation efforts for the remote sensing algorithms will be intensive. As one component of the validation, the S'COOL (Students' Cloud Observations On-Line) project will involve school children from around the globe in making ground truth measurements at the time of a CERES overpass. Their observations will be collected at the NASA Langley Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) and made available over the Internet for educational purposes as well as for use by the CERES Science Team in validation efforts. Pilot testing of the S'COOL project began in January 1997 with two local schools in Southeastern Virginia and one remote site in Montana. This experience is helping guide the development of the S'COOL project. National testing is planned for April 1997, international testing for July 1997, and global testing for October 1997. In 1998, when the CERES instrument is operational, a global observer network should be in place providing useful information to the scientists and learning opportunities to the students.

Description: Students Cloud Observations On-Line (S'COOL) is a hands-on educational project which supports NASA's Clouds and the Earth s Radiant Energy System (CERES) satellite instrument; part of the Earth Science Enterprise studying our planet. S'COOL meets science, math, technology and geography Standards of Learning (SOLs) as students observe clouds and related weather conditions, compute data and locate vital information while obtaining ground truth observations for the CERES instrument. These observations can then be used to help validate the CERES measurements; particularly detection of clear sky from space. Participants to date have been in 20 states and 5 countries and have reported great interest and learning among their students. Many have used this project as a stepping stone to further learning in other areas of Earth Science; and to do more with the Internet in the classroom. Satellite images and clues to their interpretation are used on the website ( http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/SCOOL/) . Background information is also given on Earth's Radiation Budget and it s importance in understanding our climate. Students can retrieve both their observations and the corresponding satellite data and participate in the validation efforts. A number of suggestions for studies to be done with the data, and related lesson plans, are available. Teachers can tailor this project to the appropriate level and subject matter needed for their students. The recommended grade level is 4th through 12th grade. The project is now open to new participants. We particularly seek schools in more remote areas, to obtain wider geographic coverage for ground truth data; so the project has been designed to use, but not require, computer technology. AGU participants attending the S'COOL presentation will be given a handout describing the project. Material for introducing the project in the classroom will be demonstrated in a participatory style.

Description: SHDOM is a general purpose, publicly available, three-dimensional atmospheric radiative transfer model. SHDOM is an explicit method, which means it solves for the whole radiation field, as distinct from Monte Carlo methods which solve for particular radiative outputs. SHDOM is particularly well suited for remote sensing applications, where it can compute outgoing radiances at many angles from a cloud field at virtually no extra cost. SHDOM is not appropriate for calculating domain average quantities for which Monte Carlo methods excel. The I3RC intercomparison offers an opportunity to explore the pros and cons of SHDOM and Monte Carlo models on some real world inhomogeneous cloud fields. Specifically, we wish to determine the computer resources required to achieve a particular accuracy for a certain number of outputs using SHDOM and Monte Carlo models. This will help guide modelers on the appropriate choice of SHDOM or Monte Carlo for their applications. To emphasize the importance of this accuracy versus CPU time tradeoff, we are submitting two SHDOM entries (low and high resolution) in the I3RC.

Description: The Students' Cloud Observations On-Line (S'COOL) Project involved students in K-16 as ground truth observers for a NASA Earth-Observing satellite instrument. The Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument allows scientists to study the Earth's energy budget and how clouds affect it. Student reports of cloud conditions help scientists verify their algorithms and allow students to be involved in obtaining and analyzing real scientific data. The presentation contains 23 slides.