During the last full week of May, science centers all over the world joined with area students to create “ice caps” from available white materials. At a scheduled time, the large white spots will be measured for reflectivity by NASA satellites. The effort, called the Albedo Experiment, is designed to increase public awareness of the importance of the polar ice caps to our planet’s climate. The albedo effect is the phenomenon by which reflection of the sun’s rays from the polar ice caps regulates earth’s climate.

This project was developed through a partnership between IGLO (International Action on Global Warming) and NASA. At a scheduled time, NASA satellites Landsat 7, Terra, and EO-1 will take photographs of each white spot and measure its reflectivity versus that of the sites with no “ice caps.” Science centers will use ImageJ software to take their own albedo measurements and compare them to NASA’s findings.

Participating science centers are found in Australia, France, Israel, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, and other countries and in several locations in the United States. (Find a list of participating science centers at the news page of the International Polar Year web site.) The centers are organizing other activities as part of the experiment. It is expected that images from the experiment and activities will be presented at meetings worldwide.

Using ImageJ, a free software, people all over the world can still participate in the Albedo Experiment even if they are not a partner institution. By comparing the brightness of two photos of the same spot, an estimate of the amount of light reflected by an area can be approximated. To learn more about ImageJ, visit rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/index.html.