GLOBE Schoolyard Surface Temperature Campaign 2005!

Thank you who participated in the field campaign!

Waterloo Presbyterian, Carapichaima, Trinidad & Tobago

Trinidad & Tobago is a country consisting of two main islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and 21 smaller islands located in the Southern Caribbean Sea off the coast of South America. Trinidad is the largest island, and the site of one of our participants from the 2005 Surface Temperature Campaign, Waterloo Presbyterian.

Finding a MODIS image of Trinidad & Tobago is problematic. The islands experience a lot of cloud cover, and seem to be perpetually covered with popcorn cumulus clouds. The MODIS Aqua image from October 18, 2005 still has popcorn cumulus cloud cover over the islands, but less so than the other dates investigated. Waterloo Presbyterian's latitude & longitude (10.288ºN by 61.2757ºW) is marked in the lower left image of the island as a black star. The MODIS Aqua Surface Temperature Image indicates that temperatures on this day were around 30ºc for their site. Their measurements, taken at 16:00 UTC (just an hour and 15 minutes away from the satellite image) report a surface temperature of 49.6ºc on asphalt, a much hotter surface than most of the island's cover of grass and trees.

October 18, 2005: Here (right) is an unprojected preview image of Trinidad. The small puffy white spots covering the island are called popcorn cumulus.

Below is a picture of popcorn cumulus from NOAA, taken over the US Virgin Islands.

Waterloo Presbyterian topped our list of the most observations, collecting twice as many measurements as the #2 school.

• Waterloo Presbyterian in Carapichaima, Trinidad & Tobago (246 observations)
• Immaculate Conception, Gilbertville, Iowa (110 observations)
• Whitehall High School, Whitehall, Michigan (92 observations)
• Cuyohoga Community College, Highland Hills, Ohio (71 observations)
• Ft. Hays State University, Hays, Kansas(64 observations)
• St. Edward School, Waterloo, Iowa (61 observations)

They also had the hottest reported surface temperature of our 2005 campaign.

Our Hottest Measurement: 57.7ºc (136ºF!)

Waterloo Presbyterian in Carapichaima, Trinidad & Tobago has the hottest surface temperature measurement of our 2005 campaign taken on asphalt on April 23, 2005.Their highest recorded temperature was 57.7ºc. That's 136ºF - hot enough to slowly fry an egg! Asphalt, of all the cover types measured in the campaign, has the highest surface temperature on average. Also, Trinidad & Tobago is located along South America near the Equator. This means that temperatures should be hot and steady year-round. Notice how the measurements seem to clump in two places; around 50º C and around 35º C. This difference seems to be caused by rainfall.

Lastly, here are all the measurements reported from Waterloo Presbyterian:

Great Work!

 This material is based in part upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number GEO-0222905 and SES-0243872.  Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. 

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