Measuring the Weather

Today's easy access to the internet makes it possible for anyone to contribute their weather station data to national and regional weather databases. For example, the Citizen Weather Observer Program is a private-public partnership with three main goals: (1) to collect weather data contributed by private citizens; (2) to make these data available for public weather services; and (3) to provide feedback to the data contributors so that they have the tools to improve the quality of their data. If you have a weather station and access to the internet, you can participate. Your real-time data will be used in NOAA weather prediction models and appear on their mesonet web page. Making your data available is simple and free. Information on how to join is available from the WX4NHC amateur radio station at the National Hurricane Center.

Even if you don't own your own weather station, you can contribute to the advancement of weather science by joining Climateprediction.net, a distributed computing project that allows personal computer users to participate in the world's largest climate prediction experiment. Each participant runs their own unique version of a state-of-the-art climate model, simulating several decades of the Earth's climate at a time. The model runs as a background process on ordinary desktop computers and will not affect other computing tasks. At the end of the experiment results are sent back via the internet. Simulations of present climate and past changes will be used to test different model versions and the most realistic will be used to predict the climate of the twenty-first century.