This technical report summarizes the GLOBE Observer data set from 1 April 2016 to 1 December 2019. GLOBE Observer is an ongoing NASA‐sponsored international citizen science project that is part of the larger Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program, which has been in operation since 1995. GLOBE Observer has the greatest number of participants and geographic coverage of the citizen science projects in the Earth Science Division at NASA. Participants use the GLOBE Observer mobile app (launched in 2016) to collect atmospheric, hydrologic, and terrestrial observations. The app connects participants to satellite observations from Aqua, Terra, CALIPSO, GOES, Himawari, and Meteosat. Thirty‐eight thousand participants have contributed 320,000 observations worldwide, including 1,000,000 georeferenced photographs. It would take an individual more than 13 years to replicate this effort. The GLOBE Observer app has substantially increased the spatial extent and sampling density of GLOBE measurements and more than doubled the number of measurements collected through the GLOBE Program. GLOBE Observer data are publicly available (at http://observer.globe.gov).
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.
Capsule Summary GLOBE Spring Cloud Challenge, a citizen science engagement event, resulted in a global dataset of 55,000+ cloud observations with coincident-satellite data by volunteers across all continents and in hard-to-observe regions.
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