{"id":25590,"date":"2023-05-12T13:04:18","date_gmt":"2023-05-12T17:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=25590"},"modified":"2023-05-12T13:04:18","modified_gmt":"2023-05-12T17:04:18","slug":"phenomenal-phenocam-capturing-effects-of-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/phenomenal-phenocam-capturing-effects-of-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Phenomenal phenocam: Capturing effects of climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perched high atop Paladin Stadium on the Furman University campus is a new camera with a bird\u2019s-eye view of the seasons. Known as a phenocam, it is part of a growing national network of digital cameras that record phenology, or seasonal variations in tree canopy color, to help us understand the biological impacts of climate change.<\/p>\n

\"Aerial

A sample photo from Furmanpheno. The large wedge at the bottom is the stadium roof.<\/p><\/div>\n

Emily Gardella \u201923, an Earth and environmental sciences major and data analytics minor, is largely responsible for the camera. For an independent study, her mentor, John Quinn<\/a>, directed her to the National Science Foundation\u2019s National Ecological Observatory Network<\/a>, which houses a rich collection of data, including phenological information culled by the PhenoCam Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gardella waded through the trove of data and images and realized Furman could also be part of the network. She put the wheels in motion to bring a phenocam to campus. Furman is now one of only two South Carolina universities represented on the network comprising approximately 700 total sites in the U.S. and across the globe.<\/p>\n

Smaller than a shoebox, with its lens trained on the expanse looking toward Paris Mountain, Furmanpheno<\/a> records images every 30 minutes, from sunup to sundown, 365 days a year. The photos are then uploaded to the PhenoCam Network server for processing, archiving and distribution.<\/p>\n

\"white

Gardella works with John Quinn on environmental research involving flora and fauna. She presents a poster at Furman Engaged.<\/p><\/div>\n

Gardella used data from the PhenoCam Network throughout the procurement, coding and installation of the camera to study the resiliency of a landscape following a natural disaster, such as a wildfire. She looked at green chromatic coordinate values, a measure of greenness in vegetation, and analyzed irregularities to gauge a landscape\u2019s ability to bounce back.<\/p>\n

While Gardella was glad to dip her toes into the world of phenology with her study, the broader aim of the science is to gain clues about climate variations and their effects.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important that we use all our resources to track what\u2019s going on for our future,\u201d she said. \u201cI think it\u2019s awesome that Furman is getting involved with that. Furman can also track its own resiliency over time, or it can compare its phenology with other campuses. There\u2019s a whole range of options. It\u2019s really exciting to see our campus on the PhenoCam Network.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quinn said Emily rallied offices across the university to bring the phenocam online.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer leadership connected Furman with a national-scale effort to track ecological change over time,\u201d he said. \u201cI look forward to seeing how what she started grows in impact over the next few years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looming 351 feet high atop Paladin Stadium is a camera that records changes in tree canopy over time. The images from Furman become part of a trove of data showing seasonal variations of diverse ecosystems across the U.S. and beyond. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":25593,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19,33,101,37,35,9,61,55],"tags":[1518,2083,490,2085,2084],"class_list":["post-25590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-biology","category-computer-science","category-data-analytics","category-earth-environmental-and-sustainability-sciences","category-parent-news","category-sustainability","category-the-furman-advantage","category-undergraduate-research","tag-climate-change","tag-ecology","tag-leadership","tag-phenocam","tag-phenology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}