Help NASA Count Contrails

Bubblehead writes "NASA is looking for volunteers to count Contrails in the sky: "We're looking for special clouds called contrails. We want students, teachers and parents all over the world to report the number of contrails in the sky on October 14-15." Contrails are usually created by planes in the sky - here are a few examples."

obligatory chem trail post

[oni]

Remember to count contrails and not chemtrails. ok?

mm.. tinfoil ..

[torpor]

okay folks, we're gonna be disinfecting this planet soon, we need you all to go outside and look up into the blue sky all day, mouths and noses and eyes open, and count all the contrails you can see, take lots of deep breaths.

mm.. kay?

Laugha while you can, monkey boy.

[clheiny]

This is a serious problem [skyhighway.com] endangering us all.

OK, some folks take it really seriously [chemtrailpatrol.com]. Me, well I drank some floridated water the other day, which made me vulnerable to the mind control messages Rush Limbaugh sends over the radio, and now I think it's all commie lesbian liberal nonsense.

Re:Laugha while you can, monkey boy.

[Grab]

Yep, I reckon nutso websites masquerading as serious information is endangering us all, sure enough...

Grab.

MJ-12 must need help

[PateraSilk]

NASA's worried about the recent increase in chemtrail activity by the grays and needs to do a surreptious headcount without alarming the populous.

Either that or it's gonna be a mass abduction!

I tell you what, I'm gonna wear two tinfoil hats!

volunteers

[fiftyLou]

WTF. Volunteers?? Do they honestly think we professional contrail counters are gonna take this lying down?

But ...

[gstoddart]

WTF. Volunteers?? Do they honestly think we professional contrail counters are gonna take this lying down?

Doesn't lying down keep the neck-strain to a minimum? =)

Why?

[captnitro]

I understand this is probably a good way to get people out of the office/classroom while educating about atmospheric science -- sort of like a solar eclipse -- but why on earth counting contrails? Is there a specific reason to be counting them?

Re:Why?

[xenoarch]

Most likely some scientist in NASA has a pet project, lost funding to get satelite time, so figured getting others to do his work for him. Or they are testing reliablity of volunteers to do it. IE they'll count from Sat photo's then take a avergae count of people in same area and see how reliable it is. I do find it odd that they are asking right after the solar eclipse today. Coincedence most liekly but still odd.

Re:Why?

[Deagol]

Perhaps it's an informal atmospheric study of some kind. I recall that due to the complete grounding of commercial/private airplanes in US air space in the immediate few days after 9/11/01, there was a unique chance to observe the weather patterns.

In fact, on this very site there was a headline about the results of the observations several months later.

Maybe this is an extension of those observations. Maybe they will correlate weather patterns across the country to the paths of airplanes.

That's jus

Re:Why?

[Scarblac]

See wednesday's APOD [nasa.gov].

cheap air traffic monitoring system

[A beautiful mind]

...or otherwise known as the latest anti-terrorist efforts. "ookay kids, watch out for that boeing 747 there, signal NASA that its going to land."

A social event

[kettlechips]

And, perhaps, induce scientific hunger in the youngsters.

It couldn't possibly be anything else. Had they picked something more rare to count, all the kids would drop it after ten minutes.

Since a contrail is probably visible at any moment on 99.9% of U.S. territory, the danger of youthful boredom is cunningly averted!

Important notice

[Joe the Lesser]

This fun activity is for grades 5-8.

GLOBE students take measurements of the environment and report them over the Internet. Students and scientists around the world then use the data to learn more about the Earth system. Your work could help scientists who want to study how contrails affect the air and climate.

And everybody knows, the most accurate and precise tools in climatology are middle school science classes.

this is TOO freaky

[evilmousse]

i was outside playing frisbee golf in
a milwaukee suburb yesterday around 6pm,
and i SWEAR there were enough of these
long, thin clouds that i commented to my
friend "it doesn't make sense that so many
jets flew by at different angles".

using the student pdf matchup sheet,
i'm unsatisfied. they don't match the
regular cloud pictures nearly as closely
as the jet-trail clouds, but i doubt
we had any airshows to create so many
in such an odd pattern.

iiidunno.

Chemtrails again

[dacarr]

You know, all they have to do is pinpoint all the chemtrail conspiracy people and ask them to do the deed for them.

Re:Chemtrails again

[ddraigcymraeg]

Perhaps they'll give us a black helicopter count too, kill 2 birds with one stone.

Volunteer Activities

[cowgoesmoo2004]

Okay, I'm all for volunteer activities, but how can you trust it? Does it matter if people misclassify material or simply make up numbers for the heck of it? If it does, then you can't use it. If it doesn't, that what is the point of collecting the information in the first place?

Astronomy Picture of the Day

[Gogo Dodo]

There was an Astronomy Picture of the Day [nasa.gov] showing a satellite view of contrails over Georgia.

Contrails? Not lately.

[dbirchall]

Here (~19.5N 155W) I think I've seen one contrail in the last 2.5 years. It was quite a surprise. By way of comparison, I've seen Hubble go over at least 3-5 times this year alone...