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2022 NASA GLOBE Cloud Challenge: Clouds in a Changing Climate – Results!

The NASA GLOBE Cloud Challenge 2022: Clouds in a Changing Climate, held from January 15th to February 15th, asked citizen scientists around the world to submit cloud observations through The GLOBE Program, which allows citizen scientists to submit observations through the GLOBE Observer app and allows other volunteers to participate as well, by classifying cloud types in sky photographs taken by GLOBE participants through the NASA GLOBE CLOUD GAZE project on the Zooniverse (https://www.zooniverse.org/) platform.

Totals from the NASA GLOBE Cloud Challenge 2022:

42,700+ GLOBE Cloud observations from 89 countries on all 7 continents (including Antarctica!)
2000+ new GLOBE Observer accounts and over 3x the number of observations typically submitted
321,100+ classifications on CLOUD GAZE, made by 7,000+ volunteers with 1,000+ first-time Zooniverse volunteers
108,000+ new sky photographs
2.9+ million people reached on social media

The Challenge also reached more than double its goal of 20,000 ground observation/satellite data matches, reaching more than 49,450 total matches. These matches help create complementary datasets useful for studying our climate, and the program is very close to reaching its lifetime goal of 1 million matches (having now reached 904,501 since the start of 2017).

Five subject matter experts from NASA, NOAA, and GLOBE participated in the Challenge by sharing videos on social media about the importance of clouds and our climate (https://youtu.be/N-UKow3iiuE?list=PLfpnkASII_NbzRZYSivXeWUQSwTyrpcwy). GLOBE students and teachers also developed and shared three activity videos, one of which includes the international and inter-generational video produced by The GLOBE student vloggers (https://youtu.be/C-JpVIm4We0).

Program partners also helped promote the challenge through social media or by hosting webinars. These events included:

Los Angeles Public Library Cloud Challenge Kick-off Webinar for Families and the General Public
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEyjjN5aRwQ

American Meteorological Society Weather Band (during their first Community and Citizen Science Symposium)
https://amsweatherband.org/index.cfm/weatherband/content/nasas-globe-and-cloud-gaze-programs/

Night Sky Network Session
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drbD27Qzi7A

Earth to Sky: Climate in Your Pocket Series
https://earthtosky.org/related-news/422-ciyp.html

Citizen scientists are encouraged to keep making cloud and sky observations beyond the timeframe of the challenge. New volunteers can get started by downloading the GLOBE Observer app and reviewing the GLOBE Clouds Getting Started materials.

(NASA Science Activation Award Number NNX16AE28A)

https://observer.globe.gov/es/do-globe-observer/challenges/cloud-challenge-2022