This is a call for some very easy help with my first video project – a short clip on the difference between weather and climate, approximately. (The exact content isn’t fixed yet.) More background below.

I have created a corresponding vimeo project, and posted a link to this description on causes.com: Stop Global Warming.
If you are interested in participating, you can reply either here (comment below or send me an email), or at any of the above links.

I am looking for a couple of brief and simple contributions to a small project; as I will explain below, these could be very short (seconds…) videos, or they could be similarly brief ‘interviews’ via video chat which you’d be allowing me to record. Of course, there is also the hybrid possibility: we chat via voice chat, but record ourselves with independent cameras (quality-wise presumably the best solution, but I’m not looking to make things terribly complicated).

What I would like to compile are instantaneous weather ‘observations’ from worldwide locations – as disparate from each other as possible. Most importantly temperature, but also what the sky looks like, precipitation (if any), and if there is any precipitation on the ground (i.e. snow).

The only requirement is that all of the observations should be performed approximately simultaneously across the globe. Once a couple of people have indicated their interest in participating, we can determine a time together that suits as many of us as possible. I will, in general, also want a geolocation of the observation, e.g. from Google Maps.

What is this for? I have a couple of ideas for short clips on issues connected to climate change, resource use and similar topics. I have no experience with shooting videos so far (though plenty with photography), so this is going to be my initiation . I am a climate scientist though, and my intention is to learn to communicate issues that I deem important to a broader public.

The first clip I have in mind – the one I am soliciting your help with here – is about the difference between instantaneous weather and global averages. Or, “why this cold winter doesn’t mean that global warming isn’t happening”. Your contributions from all corners of the globe are meant to illustrate the fact that at any instance in time, there are all kinds of different ‘weathers’ going on in different places. (If this is successful, an extension to averages in time might be a nice extension.)