Citizen Science Belleville to Help Test Climate Change Science

At 9:00 a.m., on Saturday, December 9, in room 412 of Belleville High School (365 W. Church Street), Citizen Science Belleville will publicly launch a new project to help “ground truth” satellite data used to measure climate change and its causes. Through a program organized by GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment), they will measure temperature and cloud cover in Belleville while satellites measure the same quantities from overhead. They will help to confirm or dis-confirm publicly available satellite data by allowing its comparison to their own measurements.
While this activity may sound aimed to discredit climate-change science, the program is actually sponsored by climate scientists at NASA. “Scientists love data and the more data they can work with the better equipped they are to make an accurate analysis,” says Meredith Smith, who teaches science at Belleville High School. “Collecting data from multiple sources will either help scientists confirm their findings or it will send them back to the drawing board.” In addition to presenting their results to the Belleville Community, Citizen Science Belleville will share their data with the GLOBE program that NASA uses to help calibrate its satellites.
All members of the Belleville community in high school or older are invited to participate in this project or to audit its accuracy. Younger scientists must be accompanied by an adult. “This is an excellent example of how being good citizens can require us to participate in science as volunteers,” says Chris Santos-Lang. “Climate change is such a politically divisive issue that delegating it entirely to professionals would create a political division isolating those professionals from the rest of our community.” The satellite data is expected to be essential to resolve controversies over whether climate change is responsible for wildfires, hurricanes and other disasters, and what (if anything) we can do to reduce the occurrence or severity of such disasters in the future.
<strong>About Citizen Science Belleville</strong>
Citizen Science Belleville is an open group of volunteers who meet from 7:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., on 1st and 3rd Mondays at Grace United Methodist Church, 246 W. Pearl Street, Belleville, to conduct replication studies advancing health, relationships, and/or well-being.  Their work is made fully accessible to everyone through the Open Science Framework and Facebook. Inquiries and concerns may be directed to Chris Santos-Lang at (920) 747-0335 or langchri@gmail.com, Betsy Blum at (608) 239-5249 or gumcadmn@gmail.com, Mary Fritz at (920) 424-6077, or George Kaminski at (608) 424-3859. 
<strong>About GLOBE</strong>
The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program was launched on Earth Day 1994, to permit public participation in collection of data used to understand our environment. It is supported by NASA, the NSF, NOAA and the US Department of State. Protocols address questions ranging from mosquito population to soil moisture. Thus far, over 140 million measurements have been logged by over 500,000 students in the United States and over 190,000 students in over 110 other countries. More information about GLOBE can be found at www.globe.gov.