"This collaboration has been great," benefiting both students in Dunedin and Samoa, University of Otago physicist Dr Inga Smith said.
"The students in Samoa get access to equipment that they would not otherwise have access to, and the students in Dunedin get access to data from Samoa to compare with their own data, which will be an interesting comparison," she said.
In an experiment, measurements were made of shortwave solar radiation, or sunlight — what was coming in, what was reflected back and what is re-emitted as longwave, or heat, Dr Smith said.
Globally, there was a radiation imbalance, "with more power coming in than going out, due to heat trapping by greenhouse gases", she said.
Before New Zealand’s first Covid-19 lockdown last March, Dr Smith had prepared by helping create a set of online resources.
This included a video on measuring solar radiation, for an environmental physics paper.
At that stage, planning for the pandemic was also being undertaken in Samoa by Otago physics graduate Tupuivao Vaiaso, who is a lecturer at the National University of Samoa.
He approached Dr Smith over laboratory resources for a paper on climate change and environmental physics he wanted to develop.
Dr Smith sent teaching resources, including the video and material linked to solar radiation budgets and melting polar ice.
"There have been clear benefits from the 2020 lockdown videos to student learning both at Otago and in Samoa," she said.
A year later, the collaboration has grown and the Otago department will this month lend to Samoa new solar radiation testing equipment, backed by $24,000 from the university’s Internationalisation of the Curriculum initiative grant and the Division of Sciences.
Senior Otago physics student Ben Ripley has helped over the summer to calibrate and make operational new testing gear that measures shortwave and longwave radiation for the loan.
Students will then be able to undertake the same experiments to measure solar radiation budgets, both in Apia, the Samoan capital, and Dunedin, and go online to compare experiments.
Mr Vaiaso said the collaboration had sparked excitement among Samoan students and "remarkably assisted" them.
