Climatology Help ( Climate data)

On the 1st sheet of the Excel workbook, you’ll see the daily temperature data. If you scroll through the data, you can see that not every date is included. This indicates that there are times when the automated monitors were not running.

1) Use the data from the 1st sheet to fill in the table on the Calculations sheet. To figure out the average for a particular month, add up the temperature values for each day and divide by the number of days. January has 31 days, but is a particular month doesn’t have data from every day, you’ll need to change that to the number of days you have.

You can also use built in excel functions. To find the average for TMAX for January 2000, we would enter the following into a blank cell:

=Average(D2:D32)

This tells excel to take the data in the table from column D from row 2 through 32, and find the average.

Use whichever method you chose to fill in the rest of the data table on the 2nd sheet, with the last row of the table (labeled “Overall”) as the average across all years. If you don’t have data for a particular year, leave that entry blank.

Enter your data into this table as well:

2) What is the range of high temperatures? What is the range of low temperatures?

3) Make a time-series plot of the average high temperatures. To do this, select the data in both the year and Average high T columns for 2000-2017.

Click on the “Insert” tab in the menu.

About halfway across, there should be a section labeled “Charts”. Click on the arrow symbol in the bottom right corner of this section.

Select the second chart on this list. It should be a “Scatter” chart.

A scatterplot should now appear.

Select the title and rename it to “Average High Temperature”

4) Calculate the trend in average high temperatures. To do this, click on the chart.

In the menu bar, there should be a button labeled “Add Chart Element”. Click on that, and select “Trendline” -> “Linear”. A line should now show up on your scatterplot.

Right-click on the line and select “Format Tendline”

On the right side of the screen, a menu bar should have appeared. Towards the bottom there will be a checkbox for “Display Equation on chart”. Check that box. The trend is the number in front of the “x” in that equation. Enter the numbers into the equation below, rounding to 2 decimal places:

5) Do parts 3) and 4), but now for the low temperatures. To select two columns of data that are not next to each other, hold down the “ctrl” key. Be sure to label this chart “Average Low temperature”. Enter the trend equation below:

6) What can we say about the trend in temperatures here in Mt. Pleasant in January? Are the highs and lows increasing? Decreasing? Is the average low temperature increasing/decreasing faster or slower than the average high temperature?

7) Make a prediction: based on this data, in January of 2100, what will the average high and low temperatures be in Mt. Pleasant?