EarthHour
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Earth Hour - Saturday, March 29, 2008 from 8 - 9 pm, local time
Phoenix and Tucson are participating. In Tucson, we knew of the following are participating:
- Pima County buildings downtown (11-story Administration Building at 130 W. Congress Street and Health and Welfare Building at 150 W. Congress Street)
- City of Tucson buildings downtown (Tucson City Hall Building and six Council Ward Offices)
- UA residence halls
- Various organizations like Sustainable Tucson and KPNO helped spread the word
For ease of internal coordination, this page lists the variety of things KPNO is checking. Please edit this page with updates for your activity.
Doug Isbell is our press contact for this. PLEASE KEEP DOUG INFORMED.
We are NOT advertising our efforts to measure from the mountain. Afterwards, we'll determine if we have anything to report.
Photography - John Glaspey
- From Kitt Peak - John Glaspey
- From A-Mountain - Alan Aversa (alan.aversa@gmail.com)
- From Pinal County and Phoenix Valley
- From Satellite Images - David Herrera
RESULTS: Movie on March 29th, 7:36 - 9:13 pm
RESULTS: The Pima County and City of Tucson building lights went off before the 1st photo and stayed off after the last photo.
[ Movie on March 29th, 7:30 - 9:30 pm]
Photo of Tucson at 7:30 pm
Photo of Tucson at 8:30 pm
Photo of Tucson at 9:30 pm
Chris Luginbuhl (cbl@nofs.navy.mil, (928) 779-5132 x235 (w), (928) 526-8538 (h))
Keith Krugger (pinalida@q.com, 480-288-8350) has a photographer who will be doing photography from Pinal County. He will coordinate with Chris Luginbuhl.
Jennifer Polakis (m24@cox.net, 480 967-1658) has coordinated amateur astronomers who will do photography from the Phoenix area. She is coordinating with Chris Luginbuhl.
Chris Luginbuhl spoke with Steve Peplau, Assessment Section Mgr at ADEQ about their Phoenix area webcams and will follow-up to get the data. They have 5 webcams (e.g. http://www.phoenixvis.net/somt1/index.html), taking images every 15min, including at night, though the web-posted archive only has 1 hr intervals. We can get the data by request. Jennifer Polakis thinks the South Mountain and Camelback Mountain cameras are the only ones with downtown Phoenix in their view, and South Mountain is best.
David Herrera will pull any relevant data from the Earth Hour subscriptions that NASA requested of NOAA (so the files won't be deleted before I return and pull them).
At NOAA, our contacts for obtaining DMSP (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) data are Chris Elvidge (1-303-497-6121, chris.elvidge@noaa.gov) and Kimberly Baugh (1-303-497-4452, Kim.Baugh@noaa.gov). They set up a subscription for David Herring (see below) who requested data in conjunction with Earth Hour. We will be able to access (after a 3 hour delay before release is allowed) the data for the cities they requested. NOAA (Kim) doubts we'll see anything. Eliz. A. has more questions to ask of them. I'll copy David Herrera in case anything needs to be decided or done before I'm back in email contact.
David Herring (301-734-1207, David.Herring@noaa.gov, was NASA Earth Observatory Project Manager but now at NOAA) asked NOAA for access to the DMSP data from the following cities: Bangkok, Canberra, Copenhagen, Manilla, Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, and San Francisco.
Robert Simmons (robert.simmon@nasa.gov) at NASA will pull the images and communicate with Ryan Cunningham from WWF/EarthHour. Robert will handle the photo/image processing. The will not calibrate the images, but just create pretty pictures.
The data is in 3000 km swaths (sun synchronous orbits) so a large part of the USA will be included in each pass. NOAA (Chris) suggested that the time the satellite would be flying over the USA would be ~7:30pm MST. I do not yet know if that time is correct and to which swath of the USA it pertains. If the 7:30 pm MST pass images AZ, then it would not show Earth Hour in Arizona since Earth Hour is 8-9 pm local time. The passes are 100 minutes apart so the next pass would be too late for Earth Hour in Arizona.
KASCA - Bob Blum
RESULTS: The KPASCA all sky monitor was in action during Earth Hour on March 29, 2008. The camera detected changes in the lighting toward Phoenix which are consistent with the Earth Hour event (lights off at 8-9 pm in Phoenix) and also clearly sees the regular Tucson lighting curfews. A short presentation on the monitoring suite and Earth Hour can be found here.
2.1-m WebCam - Steve Lane
RESULTS: - Steve report no visible difference and submits this movie of from 7pm - 11pm Saturday night.
Sky Quality Meter measurements (SQM) measurements:
Instructions for using SQMs
Analysis of SQMs (See Conclusions section.)
- Kitt Peak - Katy Garmany, Chuck Dugan, & Alex McCormick
- Katy on 29th
- Alex on 28th/30th
- Chuck on 27th/31st
- Tucson / from "A" Mountain
- Tucson / in town / other towns
- Pinal County - Keith Krugger
- Phoenix area
RESULTS: Katy reports that there was no measurable difference during Earth Hour as measured by the SQM's from Kitt Peak; however, we do have sky brightness measures over Tucson and Phoenix that may be of interest. In particular, from the 3 nights on which we have data, the brightness of the Phoenix sky was 0.8 mags darker than the Tucson sky. (The formal errors on these results are about 0.3 mags for each, so that difference isn't as robust as it appears.)
Protocol from Tumamoc Hill - Alan Aversa (alan.aversa@gmail.com)
RESULTS: Measurements - No significant difference during Earth Hour. (Location: Lat. = 32º 12.622 N, Long. = 110º 59.533 W, Altitude = 884 m)
Protocol from in towns - Katy Garmany is coordinator for citizen scientists taking SQM measurements in their own towns.
Protocol from Pinal County - Keith Krugger will have both meters and adapt the Protocol used from Kitt Peak since he will be looking only toward Phoenix.
RESULTS: Keith reports that "visually, I could not see any reduction in light pollution during Earth Hour. The SQM measurements I took seem to substantiate this impression."
RESULTS
Summary from Power Company (APS)
Press - Doug Isbell
Pima County's press release mentions KPNO.
The University of Arizona's press release mentions KPNO.
Other AZ observatories may take measurements as well. Buell Jannuzi and Doug are our liaisons for those efforts.
- LESSONS we want to convey through the use of Earth Hour
- Contacts/Activity from related groups
- Pima County / City of Tucson
- IDA
- Phoenix
- Becka Velarde (rebecca.velarde@phoenix.gov, 602-495-3727) is with the City of Phoenix. Dep. City Manager Cynthia Seelhammer (cynthia.seelhammer@phoenix.gov, 602-262-7916) and the Mayor's office were coordinating in support of Earth Hour.
- Dave Cieslak's firm (602-254-7312) is funded by WWF to handle PR for the CoPhoenix for Earth Hour. People involved in various aspects include: davecieslak@mosesanshell.com, nealbenson@..., ryanlarosa@..., jessicaquijada@... Eliz. A. spoke with Neal Benson and Amanda O'Neil. Jessica is working on their web stuff.
- Earth Hour
From the astronomy point-of-view, our main point is that energy AND dark skies can be helped by SHIELDING your outdoor lights and using MOTION SENSORS. (See the IDA web site for helpful advice.)
Shielding a light which sends light/energy where it is not needed (into the sky or a neighbor's backyard) saves a lot of energy by redirecting that light back where it's wanted. So one can reduce the wattage of the lamp (save energy) until you're back down to getting as much light on the intended subject as you got without the shield. Since shields reduce glare, an added bonus is that people see better when lights are shielded. Motion sensors that use lights only when they're needed are huge energy savers as well. Both help us enjoy the night sky, whether viewed by a family in their backyard or the professional observer (a major industry in S. AZ).
While astronomy captures public interest, these techniques are WIN-WIN for energy efficiency while improving the effectiveness of outdoor lighting at night and preserving the beauty of environment. That's why community codes encourage them, but education is key to enforcement so this is a helpful opportunity.
Tedra Fox, Pima County's Sustainability Manager, has been our contact (tedra.fox@pima.gov, 740-8766).
Beth Goreman, Program Manager with Pima County Dept. of Environmental Quality, is handling Pima County's press release (beth.goreman@deq.pima.gov, 740-3343).
Tedra put in a request to TEP (afregoso@tep.com) asking if there is a way to find out if there is a notable decline in electrical demand on Saturday night.
Press release - Bob Gent (RLGent1@aol.com)
March 29th is the first night of National Dark-Sky Week.
Meg Pearce (meg.pearce@wwfus.org, 571-426-3424) is a World Wildlife Fund Earth Hour coordinator who will be in Phoenix for the event. Connie Walker communicates with her. Eliz. A. spoke with Meg about including notes on shielding lights and similar strategies on the EarthHour web site. Meg said they'd likely get to it after the 30th, but we look forward to building on this for next year.
Contacts
In addition to the leads listed above, Buell Jannuzi and Mike Merrill are contacts for these activities.
Elizabeth Alvarez will check voicemail at x8414 daily, but Nanette Bird knows how to reach her if needed.
