Validation of GLOBE Citizen Science Observations Using Data from the Great American Solar Eclipse.

On August 21, 2017, During the Great American Solar Eclipse, students and citizen scientists took weather observations across the United States as part of the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program. The collected citizen science data includes cloud cover, air temperature and surface temperature measurements. The method of data collection employed GLOBE Observer app and temperature protocols established by the program. Over 80,000 observations were taken on the day of the eclipse. Observations were spread out to cover the time frame during, before and after the totality as per the protocol. Given this large number of observations, this data can be used to understand the micro-climatic changes associated with solar eclipse. At the same time, it provides a great opportunity to assess the accuracy of the GLOBE citizen science data collection initiative. For this study, 700 GLOBE air temperature observations were compared with data from 92 National Weather Service weather stations. Citizen Scientist observations taken within 15 km of a NWS weather station between 15:00 and 20:00 UTC on the day of the eclipse were compared for inconsistency. Apart from the direct comparison, further statistical tests were performed to measure the quality of the observations. The results show that there was good correlation with an R² of 0.9ºC. A t-test showed that the observations were related. Future studies will include further validation of the GLOBE citizen science cloud cover and land surface temperature observations as well as analyses of weather changes during the eclipse.