Geography 370: CLIMATOLOGY
NOTE: This is a Two Part Exercise,
each worth a full exercise's creditI'd like you to do a little searching on the web to find a location in the world for which you can obtain good weather data, consistently, every day. It is essential that you also be able to obtain climate data on your location as well.
Ideally, daily weather data on your chosen location should include, at the very least, temperature (minimum and maximum, if you go back to the record from the day before), and total precipitation for the day (also from the record of the day before). If you are able to check your source at the same time each day (e.g. 4 p.m.), you could get current readings. Your site should also include one or more of the following:
SEE LIST OF VARIABLES BELOW
Keep in mind that your main goal is to obtain daily temperature and precipitation, and the other data fill out the picture. If you have temperature and humidity, you can estimate precipitation days, even if that data isn't available. Precip data is the most difficult to obtain unless you get the record from the day before.
The climate data should include mean monthly temperature for March, mean minimum and maximum temperatures for March, and mean precipitation. If you are collecting other weather variables, try to find the same variables in the climate record so that you can compare records. The climate record should go back at least 30 years, but doesn't have to be the most recent 30 year period (e.g. 1971 through 2000)
What you will do: You'll gather daily records for your site for two weeks, then plot the daily temperature (highs and lows, and time of recording), and precipitation or humidity on Excel spreadsheets or graphs. Then you'll compare your weather data to climate data by calculating your 2009 March means and comparing them to your climate data. Is this year unusual? Or nearly average? Your exercise must include a Discussion of the meaning of the data comparision. Does your climate data indicate record highs and lows, min and max precipitation for this period? How do these record temps/precip compare with this October? Keep in mind you're only doing two weeks, so it won't be entirely comparable.
Where to look: We have quite a few weather and climate data pages on the Climatology Web Resources page. Or, use a search engine. For climate data, there are both on-line and print resources available in the Schultz library. The Media Center has a CD of climate records for the Western U.S. Let's try to get a good global distribution of stations, so not everyone should take a site in the U.S. You may find it difficult to get good data from a developing country, but may not be so bad if you find stations that are in somewhat industrialized places.
· Each student will pick a different site to monitor weather data. We will finalize locations in class Tues. Oct. 9.
· Include Prominently in your report and on your charts the Name and Location of your place, in Longitude and Latitude.
· Using a web site, try to gather your data at the same time each day. Pick a time when you can reliably get on the web, preferably during daylight hours for your location, but at night if necessary. (What is the time difference between here and your location?) Please include complete reference citations for your data sources, web sites, print sources, or other media.
· Gather as much as you can of the following data for your location for each day
1. Date, Time (Local)
2. Temperature
3. Relative Humidity
4. Dewpoint
5. Wind direction and velocity
6. Atmospheric Pressure (note inches or millibars)
7. Atmospheric Conditions (e.g. partly cloudy, cloudy, etc.)
8. Precipitation, if any - type and amount
9. Visibility (distance)
10. Yesterday's Maximum and Minimum Temperatures
11. Yesterday's Precipitation totals
12. Time of Sunrise and SunsetOrganize your data collection before you begin. For example, you can set up a piece of graph paper with your climate variables across the top (X axis) and dates along the left edge (Y axis), with boxes for each variable. Write clearly so that you can read what you wrote later. Include a box for Miscellaneous - if some special weather event occurs you want space to note it. OR, set up your data sheet in an Excel worksheet on your computer and transfer the data from the web to your sheet. This will make it much easier to graph your results. If you'd like some help with this, please ask.
What you will turn in:.
When you have gathered your data set, plot each of the main variables that you've collected on a graph. You will have one graph for each variable.
Make graphs of the daily variations in Temperature, Relative Humidity, and Atmospheric Pressure, and Precipitation for each day.
For your Temperature graph, you may have three colored lines: one each for the Temperature Maximum, Minimum, and Temperature at time of your observation. For example, you may have a graph with Days or Dates along the X-axis and Variations in Temperature along the Y-axis.
Along with your graphs of Temperature, Precipitation, and other variables, please also turn in your original data sets.
Bonus: If you see interesting weather going on in your location, turn in satellite images that correspond to your location for particular days.
EXERCISE 3 -- COMPARISON OF WEATHER WITH CLIMATE DATA
Data Comparison and Analysis Due Monday, April 6th
In Exercise 2, you gathered weather data for a particular site, somewhere in the world. In this exercise, you will gather Climate data on your site and compare it with the weather data you gathered. Recall Climate data is an average of 30 years of instrumental data. So you should try to pick data from the most recent thirty year period, for example 1961 through 1990, or 1971 through 2000. It would also be interesting to compare your data with another, older, data set, say from the first part of the 20th century.
What you should do:
1. Search the web, or obtain hard copy climate data from the library, for your site. You should try to get as many as possible of the same variables you gathered for your weather study. These may include:
Temperature
Mean annual
Mean monthly
Mean monthly diurnal range
Record monthly and annual highs and lowsPrecipitation
Mean annual
Mean monthly
Type of precipitation - rain, sleet, snow, ice pelletsAlso: mean annual number cloudy days, mean monthly relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, evapotranspiration, solar radiation (available for only a few stations), windiness
2. Gather climate data for your site for the month of March, plus annual figures. Specify the thirty year period that your data comes from.
3. Compare your weather data (two weeks in March) with the mean March conditions from your climate data set. To do this you will need to calculate the means from your collected data:
Mean monthly temperature - even though you only have 14 days worth
a. Calculate the mean daily temp by adding the high and low then dividing by two.
b. Add up the means for all 14 days, then divide by 14.
Mean monthly precipitation - add up all precip and multiply by two: total monthly precipitation.
Do the same for cloudiness - add up all the cloudy days, multiply by two.
Mean daily relative humidity - add up and divide by 14
Mean daily barometric pressure - add up and divide by 14
Etcetera -
4. What you should turn in:
Include your climate data set, plus your calculations from your raw data for March of this year.
Write a short essay, a couple of paragraphs, describing the similarities and differences between your data set and the mean climatic conditions of your study site. Do you think the two weeks in March of this year, were similar or different from "normal" (i.e. anomalous). If they were different from "normal", do you think the differences were within the range of what you would normally expect, or were they unusually anomalous?
Using what you have learned in this class, describe the major controlling factors for the climate of your site.
5. EXTRA CREDIT (50% more credit for Exercise 3, up to about 5 extra points, depending on how well and how thoroughly you do this extra part)
Gather another complete set of climate data for your study site, from instrumental records that are as old as you can find. Compare these data with the modern data set and with your weather data. Write another short essay, a few paragraphs, describing these climate conditions for your site and how they differ from the modern data set and your gathered weather data. How similar or different are the two data sets? Do you think there are any trends revealed in the comparison or have conditions stayed the same? (Can you plot the trends?) Do you think this reflects normal climate variability over the time period in question?
Last updated 2/23/09
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