In response to an Announcement of Opportunity for the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment Program (GLOBE) this project is designed to meet GLOBE goals and objectives of linking scientists and schoolchildren in a global information network with the ultimate goal of better understanding Earth's environment and changes that take place within it. This proposal will support existing protocols, and conduct scientific research with GLOBE data. The project will continue to support the protocol for the measurement of snow and cloud cover, as well as soil moisture. In addition, this team will develop new protocols for the measurement of Surface Temperature, and lead the Soil Moisture investigation. This team is already using past GLOBE data to do validation work for the snow detection algorithm and cloud screening technique from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite, and this grant will allow validation work on the MODIS surface temperature measurements. This grant will form part of an energy-budget suite of GLOBE investigations that will cover soil temperature and moisture, atmospheric temperature and humidity, cloud cover, and aerosol optical thickness - all factors that must be considered in an energy budget.
