Halter told students Tuesday. Global Forest comprises a group of scientists from varying disciplines who research climatic and other changes that could be harmful to the planet. In the process, they hope to involve children as much as possible. The weather station on the roof of Oconee County's Malcom Bridge Middle School is one of 14 such stations installed at middle schools around the world by Global Forest, a group of scientists studying climactic change. The stations send data via the World Wide Web to the University of Victoria in Canada.
Students update the site daily, and weather conditions can be checked retroactively for five months.
Halter believes that the world's increasing dependence on fossil fuels is raising carbon dioxide levels, trapping heat and causing global warming. That means we're getting more water in our oceans. A computer screen shows weather information from the station at Malcom Bridge Middle School in Oconee County. The school is only one of 14 in the world to host a Global Forest weather station. He mentioned a middle school in Arcata, Calif., where he keeps a weather station that helped students determine a wind shift that caused an intended controlled burn to get out of hand.