Estonia GLOBE Games 2005

Link to Sven-Erik Enno's thunderstorm research presentation at the GLOBE Games

GLOBE Principal Investigator Dr. David Brooks attended the 2005 Estonian GLOBE Games, held August 9-11 at a summer camp on the shores of the Baltic Sea near the town of Kuuresaare on the island of Saaremaa. Students and teachers from Estonia, Latvia, and Finland gathered to practice GLOBE protocols, make new friends, and develop partnerships.

Sparsely populated Saaremaa depends heavily on tourism, mostly from Scandanavian countries. Many visitors come from Finland because Finnish and Estonian are very closely related languages. Saaremaa is reachable by ferry service from the Estonian mainland to the smaller island of Muhu, which is connected by a short causeway to Saaremaa.

Students practicing GLOBE protocols.

Ülle Kikas, Estonia's GLOBE country coordinator, wants some Estonian schools to start making sun photometer measurements, and Dr. Brooks brought three instruments and discussed the Aerosols Protocol with two groups of teachers and students. There is currently an Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) sun photometer at Toravere, in the southern part of Estonia. The weather at Kuuresaare was not very cooperative, with sporadic rain and overcast skies. Enough sun came through thin clouds on one afternoon to demonstate operation of the sun photometer, but not to collect usable data.

Demonstrating the GLOBE sun photometer.


Clouds over the Baltic Sea, from the beach at the 2005 Estonia GLOBE Games.

Dr. Brooks also showed participants how to find and interpret satellite overflight times on NASA's Earth Observatory Web site and presented an introduction to the CloudSat mission and other satellites in NASA's "A-train" series of Earth observing platforms, based on a presentation by Debra Krumm and Jennifer Lockett given at the previous week's GLOBE Annual Meeting in Prague, the Czech Republic. CloudSat is scheduled to be launched in September, 2005.

David Brooks, Ülle Kikas (right), and Taimi Alas.
Dr. Brooks' trip was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Tallin, Estonia, and the GLOBE/Estonia program. The photo shows Dr. Brooks with Ülle Kikas and Embassy representative Taimi Alas. This year marked the first time that a GLOBE PI has attended the Estonian GLOBE Games.