Scientists Use Thousands of Public Webcams to Study Climate Change
When it comes to studying the climate, it turns out scientists only have a few relied-upon methods–to get data, you typically need to either look at satellites, which can cover vast expanses of the earth, or turning to on-the-ground monitoring stations and operations.
Problem is, there are limitations to both. On the ground monitoring is extremely expensive, and satellites observational capabilities are restricted due to interference from cloud cover. These issues have made studying climate change on a large scale problematic and difficult. But researchers from UCLA think they may have found a solution–by turning thousands of webcams towards outdoor environments.
The webcams were already pointed at roads, airports, and other outdoor public areas–all they needed to do was check in on the images and note the changes over time. Most notably, they were used to study how “climate change is shifting the timing of some plant phenology (flowering, budding, senescence) in some environments.” And here’s what they found (findings were published in the journal Global Change Biology):
•Webcams are as good or better at detecting the spring green-up and the fall die-off than satellite-based data
•Webcams have fewer poor quality days, shorter continuous bad data days, and significantly lower errors of spring and fall estimates in various vegetation types
And while Mother Jones notes that the data wasn’t perfect–cameras were prone to shut off randomly and occasionally, they weren’t always pointed at ideal targets, and the resolution varied wildly–it still turned out to be an overwhelmingly successful new way to gather data about climate change.