Globe Observer Trees
NASA needs a second set of eyes.
NASA is doing more and more satellite research from the sky and would like a second set of eyes (from community scientists) down here on the ground. The focus is trees which have been called the best carbon capture technology in the world.
Today, I’m excited to introduce you to a novel community science endeavor: Globe Observer Trees. Crafted at NASA, this app-based project empowers citizen scientists to document tree data, with a special focus on tree height.
According to NASA, keeping an eye on tree height helps us gauge how well an ecosystem supports tree growth.
Tracking changes of tree growth over time gives us the lowdown on the health of a forest. Plus, both tree height and trunk circumference contribute to assessing biomass, which quantifies the total mass of living matter above ground within a defined area.
“Globe Observer Trees essentially lets people from all over the world give measurements of trees, and it is information we (scientists) can’t get because we can’t go into every single forest ourselves,” Dr. Laura Doncaster, said in a video interview. “We're essentially measuring the amount of living stuff above ground in certain areas.”
I tried the app for the first time on a cedar tree at the Cedars of Lebanon State Park in Tennessee. Fred and I had been in Tennessee to visit my family and my home place. Afterwards we headed over to an orienteering meet at the park. While Fred went out on a course, I seized the opportunity to measure a medium-sized red cedar tree. I’ll tell about it, but first, a little story:
Yesterday when I was young and about to graduate from high school, I received a gift that featured red cedar wood. At school, the senior girls were told to go to the principal’s office to get a special card. The card, from the local furniture store, represented a gift we could pick up. . . a smooth and solid red cedar keepsake box with a hinged top you could lock.
Recently, I went looking for my old box around mom’s house and found it after some digging.
“The good smell is long gone,” I told Fred as I examined it and sniffed the empty insides. The little key was lost too, as well as the polished gleam of the exterior. I researched to see if there was a way to get the fragrance back, but no. The YouTube video I found said you can sand down the insides of the box, but then the dust particles would be toxic, so not a good idea.
I also found some mentions of the boxes here and there online. Thousands of them—and they all look basically the same—were given away as furniture store promos in the 70s and 80s. The idea was for the girls (and their parents) to go to the store to pick up the free box and stay, look around and decide to buy full-sized red cedar “hope” chests. Also I suppose it was supposed back then the girls would be getting married soon and would be excited to have a big chest packed full of linens and other household what-nots.
None of that happened with me.
Still, I like holding on to the box now, remembering myself at 18, and remembering my dreams and hopes of those days. None were linen related, by the way.
Today, Ebay has more than 300 of these keepsake boxes for sale. Average price is around $20.
Okay, back to measuring trees for NASA, and how it went when I measured a cedar tree in the wilds of Tennessee recently:
Select a tree and use the app and your phone’s camera to measure the angle from the bottom to the top of the tree.
Walk up to the tree and count your steps. Report on surface conditions. Put all info. into app. which will calculate an estimate of the tree’s height.
Optional steps: take a photo of tree and measure circumference.
I did all the NASA Globe Observer steps with the cedar tree, but I didn’t have a tape measure to take a circumference reading. I was wearing my yellow cycling vest that day, an Ebay pandemic-era (too much Ebay you say? never), and used it to take a crude measurement by flinging it around the tree’s middle and noting the inch of space left over.
“There,” I said out loud to myself. “Tree circumference in vest fabric.” Later, at home, with tape measure in hand I replicated my unpolished but effective movements and reported this: circumference 43.5 inches.
Try Globe Observer Trees yourself, and see all the options NASA has for us as contributors to scientific exploration.
Coming up:
Profile and interview with a young Atlanta-area environmentalist who works for Trees Atlanta.
Loved your personal touch!