David R. Brooks, PhD

President
Institute for Earth Science Research and Education
2686 Overhill Drive
Eagleville, Pennsylvania 19403 USA
Phone: 610-584-5619
E-mail: brooksdr@instesre.org
Some of the work described on this site has been made possible by support from the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, and the Toyota USA Foundation. Click here for policy statements concerning this website.

Milkweed Tussock (Tiger) Moth caterpillar, Euchaetes Egle
July 29, 2017. Milkweed is best known for its critical role in
providing Monarch Butterfly habitat. However, milkweed is also
home to the Milkweed Tussock, or Tiger Moth. The coloring of
this rather bizarre caterpillar warns potential predators that
it will not be a tasty meal. It is about 1" (2.5cm} long. The
head is at the top of the photo.

You can now use your PayPal account to purchase instruments from IESRE.

NEW! Graphics with Arduinos and Small TFT displays
This document shows how to use a small TFT display (ID 2088 from www.adafruit.com) to generate simple bar graphs. A code example shows how to update and graph eight pairs of temperature and relative humidity values from a DHT22 sensor. Code is also given that shows how to include storing the temperature and relative humidity data to an SD card with a date/time stamp, using the ID 1141 data logging shield from www.adafruit.com. Code is given for displaying small .bmp images on the display.

Air quality parameter monitoring for ozone and PM2.5 is back in Norristown, PA.
The DEP monitoring site in Norristown is only a few miles from my home. In 2015, PM2.5 monitoring was discontinued at this site, but it has now restarted. Real-time AQI values from monitoring sites in Pennsylvania can be found HERE and nationally, HERE. The Norristown site reports only 1-hr ozone and PM2.5 values. These values have been used in recent studies of the relationship between air quality and sky color.

Links to several documents relating to using Arduino microcontrollers have been moved to their own web page.

Here is a link to some data resources from the Climate Literacy Network.

See our News link for information about a NASA Technical Memorandum which assesses an inexpensive method for measuring total column water vapor based on a 2011 paper by Mims, Chambers, and Brooks. Links to the original BAMS paper and the NASA Technical Memorandum are provided. These measurements are ideal for student research projects.

Here is a link to a web page that shows how to create a .kml file that will display the location of all of NOAA's Climate Reference Network sites on Google Earth's global map. You can "tag" each site with additional information. This kind of display is a big improvement over using 2-D maps! The web page isn't a tutorial on the KML "language," which is structured much like HTML, but there is a link to a nice online tutorial. There is also a template for creating .kml files from Excel. There will be a permanent link to this page under the "How Do I...?" tab.

Find NOAA U.S. Historical Climatology and Climate Reference Network sites near you.
This online application lets you find USHCN and CRN sites within a specified longitude/latitude box. You can display a list of the sites or generate a .kml file for displaying the sites on a Google Earth global map.

Student Climate Science Inquiry and Research Projects
David Brooks' new document, Climate Science Inquiry and Research Projects for Students: Earth's Radiative Balance, is a result of project development carried out during IESRE's three-year, NASA-funded Climate Science Research for Educators and Students. This document begins with an an introduction to Earth's radiative balance and using data loggers to collect data. It then describes projects for measuring total solar radiation at Earth's surface, surface reflectance, surface and sky thermal radiation, sky photography, and using existing data to examine climate trends in the U.S. The PDF version of the document can be downloaded HERE.
This early version of the document represents a work in progress, but IESRE hopes that students and teachers will find it helpful as they plan for science fair projects in 2014. Your comments and suggestions are, as always, welcome.

Student Climate Science Inquiry and Research Projects by David R. Brooks is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

2014 UPDATE ON CLIMATE DATA ACCESS APPLICATIONS A SINGLE WEB PAGE is now available for accessing NOAA's Climate Reference Network data through the end of 2013, including additional insolation data and including a clear-sky model; the US Historical Climatology Network; 30-year climate normals (currently 1971-2000 and 1981-2010).

Notes from a Temperate Climate. A site dedicated to students, teachers, and my friends living in Thailand's tropical climate.

This graph of barometric pressure recorded during Hurricane Irene in 2011 and "super storm" Sandy in 2013 dramatically illustrates the passage of these storms through our area. Many sites, including a small airport site near IESRE were not operational during the height of Sandy. Amazingly, we did not lose electrical power during either of these storms even though both storms resulted in widespread power losses – millions of people throughout the northeast lost power during Sandy.

Links to some other useful and interesting material:
This website provides photos from space of the entire Earth, updated daily.

PDF versions of Brooks' PowerPoint presentations from June 2012 GLOBE/Europe-Eurasia Annual Meeting, Utrecht, The Netherlands:
• A History of Student Sun Photometry
• Student Pyranometry
• (for information about monitoring surface radiating temperature, see this link.)

Presentations from the Asia-Pacific Regional GLOBE Learning Expedition, Hua Hin, Thailand, 13-18 November, 2007:
Student Climate Change Research, 2008-09 version (9.4 MB PowerPoint document)
Spreadsheet model for "designing" your own planet
Our Fox Family, 2006
Calculate solar position and the time of solar noon at your coordinates.
Set your watch or clock accurately. Use the UTC "time zone" to display the internationally accepted time for reporting scientific data.
Link to current weather conditions in Pennsylvania (Get other states by changing "pa" to another two-letter state code.)
Link to weather during past 24 hours at Wings Field, Blue Bell, Montgomery County, PA
Link to an excellent local weather and climate site.

My local weather and forecasts
(Look here for weather during past 24 hours at other places.)
Historical weather data around the globe
More historical climate data around the globe
Link to satellite overpass predictor
Link to DEP air quality monitoring information for Pennsylvania
Naval Research Lab's Navy Aerosol Analysis and Prediction System Global Aerosol Model (NAAPS)
National Weather Service description of meteorological station model symbols