Encouraging the Amateur to Measure Climate Change

Abstract

Abstract : As the community becomes increasingly aware of environmental disasters and climatic extremes, a feeling of ineffectiveness and frustration can often be created through lack of involvement and influence. This paper aims to encourage the amateur climate change enthusiast to become an effective scientific observer by presenting working examples of experiments that have generated good scientific results but were started by enthusiastic locals taking an interest in their environment. Examples are given of alternative ways to determine longer time series data sets ranging from fish species caught over time to myths folklore and legends. The increase in the range of electronic instruments being used in every day life can be utilised by the amateur enthusiast to further enhance the time series record of the community. Ideas are presented ranging from cataloguing modern digital camera photographs using the time tags, monitoring sun spot activity using a cheap and cheerful solar radiation recorder to storm chasing, tracking water currents using global positioning satellites, echo sounders bathymetry and sea bottom classification. Repeatability, accuracy and calibration techniques are also discussed along with data quality. Recommendations of further work are discussed, in particular establishing a network of external independent, roving experts armed with sophisticated calibration instrumentation that would be of benefit to amateurs and enthusiasts, with limited or no operating budgets, attempting to observe record and compare datasets that help describe the vast and noisy environment of our planet.