HS-221

[MINI PROJECT]
[MEASURING CLIMATE CHANGES]

GROUP-13

NISHANT KUMAR SINGH (2104221)

DEVESH CHETIWAL (2104209)
MANVENDRA SINGH (2104216)
GAUTAM KUMAR MAHAR (2103114)
SUMIT VANANI (2104238)
1.In this dataset, temperature is measured as ‘anomalies’
rather than as absolute temperature. Using NASA’s
Frequently Asked Questions section as a reference, explain
in your own words what temperature ‘anomalies’ means.
Why have researchers chosen this particular measure over
other measures (such as absolute temperature)?

Answer. The reason why these researchers have chosen to use

Temperature Anomalies instead of Absolute Temperatures is
that when studying Climate change, we are interested in the
trend of increasing or decreasing temperatures from a base
period (taken to be 1950-81) and at the same time difference
in Absolute Temperatures is also reflected in the differences
in Temperature Anomalies of each year.

2. Choose one month and plot a line chart with average

temperature anomaly on the vertical axis and time (from
1880 to the latest year available) on the horizontal axis.
Label each axis appropriately and give your chart a
suitable title (Refer to Figure 1.1 as an example.)

Answer.
3. The columns labelled DJF, MAM, JJA, and SON contain
seasonal averages (means). For example, the MAM column
contains the average of the March, April, and May
columns for each year. Plot a separate line chart for each
season, using average temperature anomaly for that
season on the vertical axis and time (from 1880 to the
latest year available) on the horizontal axis.
Answer.
4.
The column labelled J–D contains the average temperature
anomaly for each year.
(a) Plot a line chart with annual average temperature
anomaly on the vertical axis and time (from 1880 to
the latest year available) on the horizontal axis. Your
chart should look like Figure1.1
Extension: Add a horizontal line that intersects the
vertical axis at 0, and label it ‘1951–1980 average’.

Answer.

(b) What do your charts from Questions 2 to 4(a) suggest

about the relationship between temperature and time?

Answer- It is evident from the charts above that as time goes

by the temperature increases steadily.
5.
You now have charts for three different time intervals: month
(Question 2), season (Question 3), and year (Question 4). For
each time interval, discuss what we can learn about patterns
in temperature over time that we might not be able to learn
from the charts of other time intervals.

Answer-
Studying each chart gives us different information about the
patterns, the monthly graph for example will help us identify
whether Climate change is uniform over the months or is it
distributed over months non-uniformly, while looking at the
seasons would help us identify whether the position of the sun
contributes to higher temperature anomaly, which might help us
identify climate change as an event accelerated by events on earth
rather than earth's orbit or other events related to space. While
seasons and months help us for the reasons listed above, the
yearly chart helps us see the overall trend over the years from the
given data and identify exactly when the temperature anomaly
while only looking at the averages throughout the years.

6.
Compare your chart from Question 4 to Figure 1.4, which
also shows the behaviour of temperature over time using data
taken from the National Academy of Sciences.

(a) Discuss the similarities and differences between the

charts. (For example, are the horizontal and vertical
axes variables the same, or do the lines have the same
shape?)
Answer- The charts have the same variable on the vertical axis
and horizontal axis however the range of the variable on
horizontal axis is larger than the one we presented in the
question earlier, however the shape of the chart is quite
different as the one presented in the graph begins with a steady
decrease followed by a jump towards the 20th century.

(b) Looking at the behaviour of temperature over time

from 1000 to 1900 in Figure 1.4, are the observed
patterns in your chart unusual?

Answer- The pattern in our chart is a steady increase as we

move towards 2010 while in the graph shown the pattern was a
steady yet slow decrease until the 19th century and after
touching the 20th century we see a very sudden jump in
contrast to the earlier situation, while our graph represents the
20th century with an upward slope graph. The patterns in our
graph are therefore certainly unusual.

(c) Based on your answers to Questions 4 and 5, do you

think the government should be concerned about
climate change?

Answer- The government should be concerned about climate

change as the trend has changed very suddenly in the past few
hundred years compared to the trend followed in the past
millennium, this is very concerning and all our efforts should
be in stopping this trend.
 1. Using the monthly data for June, July, and August,
create two frequency tables similar to Figure 1.5 for
the years 1951–1980 and 1981–2010 respectively. The
values in the first column should range from −0.3 to
1.05, in intervals of 0.05. See R walk-through 1.3 for
how to do this.

Answer. The frequency table is given below

2. Using the frequency tables from Question 1:

(a) Plot two separate column charts (frequency
histograms) for 1951–1980 and 1981–2010 to
 show the distribution of temperatures, with
frequency on the vertical axis and the range of
temperature anomaly on the horizontal axis.
Your charts should look similar to those in
the New York Times article.

(b) Using your charts, describe the similarities and

differences (if any) between the distributions of
temperature anomalies in 1951–1980 and 1981–
2010.
Answer- Both the curves seem to be normal Bell curves,
the graph corresponding to 1951-1980 is shifted towards
left and is sharper showing a smaller value of mean and
variance compared to the graph corresponding to 1981-
2010 where the graph seems shifted to the right and
distributed more throughout the axis.
3. The New York Times article considers the bottom third
(the lowest or coldest one-third) of temperature
anomalies in 1951–1980 as ‘cold’ and the top third (the
highest or hottest one-third) of anomalies as ‘hot’. In
decile terms, temperatures in the 1st to 3rd decile are
‘cold’ and temperatures in the 7th to 10th decile or
above are ‘hot’ (rounded to the nearest decile). Use
R’s quantile function to determine what values
correspond to the 3rd and 7th decile across all months in
1951–1980.

Answer- The values corresponding to the 3rd and 7th decile

across all months in 1951–1980 are -0.1 and 0.1 respectively,
which we've calculated using quantile function in R.

4. Based on the values you found in Question 3, count the

number of anomalies that are considered ‘hot’ in 1981–
2010, and express this as a percentage of all the
temperature observations in that period. Does your
answer suggest that we are experiencing hotter weather
more frequently in 1981–2010? (Remember that each
decile represents 10% of observations, so 30% of
temperatures were considered ‘hot’ in 1951–1980.)

Answer- The number of anomalies that are considered to be

'hot' are 304, In percentage 84.72% of all the temperature
observations are 'hot'.

5. The New York Times article discusses whether

temperatures have become more variable over time. One
way to measure temperature variability is by calculating
 the variance of the temperature distribution. For each
season (DJF, MAM, JJA, and SON):

[a]. Calculate the mean (average) and variance separately for

the following time periods: 1921–1950, 1951–1980, and 1981–
2010.

Ans 5) (A). The mean and variance for December, January and February are:
Time-Period Mean(Average) Variance
1. 1921-1950 -0.03666667 0.05785057
2. 1951-1980 -0.00200000 0.05023724
3. 1981-2010 0.52300000 0.07929759

The mean and variance for March, April and May are :
Time-Period Mean(Average) Variance
1. 1921-1950 -0.0503333333 0.03112747
2. 1951-1980 0.0006666667 0.02526851
3. 1981-2010 0.5090000000 0.07618172

The mean and variance for June, July and August are :
Time-Period Mean(Average) Variance
1. 1921-1950 -0.0580000000 0.02112000
2. 1951-1980 -0.0580000000 0.01470678
3. 1981-2010 0.4010000000 0.06836793

The mean and variance for September, October and November are :
Time-Period Mean(Average) Variance
1. 1921-1950 7.366667e-02 0.02883092
2. 1951-1980 2.358140e-19 0.02641379
3. 1981-2010 4.286667e-01 0.11191540
[a]. For each season, compare the variances in different
periods, and explain whether or not temperature appears to
be more variable in later periods.

Answer.
For each season it is evident that the variance increases suddenly
when going from 1921-1980 to 1981-2010 increasing 0.02,0.04 and
0.09 units respectively, this increase shows that the temperature
appears to be more variable in 1981-2010.

6. Using the findings of the New York Times article and

your answers to Questions 1 to 5, discuss whether
temperature appears to be more variable over time.
Would you advise the government to spend more money
on mitigating the effects of extreme weather events?

Answer.
Looking at the New York Times article and the questinos
answered above it is quite evident that over the years in the
past few decades the temperature mean and variance has gone
up by a large amount, while we discussed the variances in last
question.

1. The CO2 data was recorded from one observatory in

Mauna Loa. Using an Earth System Research
Laboratory article as a reference, explain whether or not
you think this data is a reliable representation of the
global atmosphere.
 Answer.
We can take this data to be reliable as the data was taken from an
altitude of 3400 m which is well situated to measure the air masses
associated with a large area. The data they claim was calibrated
frequently and measured rigorously and the data has been
compared with other independent measurements showing very low
variation.

2. The variables trend and interpolated are similar, but not

identical. In your own words, explain the difference
between these two measures of CO2 levels. Why might
there be seasonal variation in CO2 levels?
Answer.
The main difference is that interpolation is taken as the monthly
average which increases or decreases, and the trend is data taken as
a function that only increases showing the overall trend of the data
along the years, interpolation data tends to decrease as well as an
increase while maintaining a steady increase over the years. So
interpolation is representative of the real data while Trend seems to
represent the change over all the years in the dataset.

3. Plot a line chart with interpolated and trend CO2 levels

on the vertical axis and time (starting from January
1960) on the horizontal axis. Label the axes and the chart
legend, and give your chart an appropriate title. What
does this chart suggest about the relationship between
CO2 and time?
Answer.
The data very clearly shows that over time the CO2 levels have
steadily increased and reached a higher amount from 1960-2010.

4. Choose one month and add the CO2 trend data to the
temperature dataset from Part 1.1, making sure that the
data corresponds to the correct year.
(a) Make a scatterplot of CO2 level on the vertical
axis and temperature anomaly on the horizontal
axis.

Answer-
 (b) Calculate and interpret the (Pearson) correlation
coefficient between these two variables.
Answer-
We find the correlation coefficient to be 0.8513892 which indicates a
strong positive association between CO2 levels and the Temperature
dataset.
(c) Discuss the shortcomings of using this coefficient
to summarize the relationship between variables

Answer. One limitation of using a correlation coefficient is that it

only tells us about the strength of the upward- or downward-sloping
linear relationship between two variables, and in certain cases where
the correlation coefficient might point to a strong positive
association in spite of their being different causes behind both the
variables.

5. Choose two months and add the CO2 trend data to the
temperature dataset from Part 1.1, making sure that the
 data corresponds to the correct year. Create a separate
chart for each month. What do your charts and the
correlation coefficients suggest about the relationship
between CO2 levels and temperature anomalies?
Answer-
The charts and the correlation coefficients above suggest a strong
causal relationship between CO2 levels and temperature anomalies.

6. Consider the example of spurious correlation described

above.
(a) In your own words, explain spurious correlation and
the difference between correlation and causation.
Answer-
Causality is the characteristic where one variable’s behavior
affects another. While correlation is the relationship between the
trends of two variables irrespective of causality. In correlation, the
cause of the correlation between two variables may be caused by
the variables themselves or some “unseen factor”. Correlation
does not necessarily impy Causation. Such correlation is called
spurious correlation.

(b) Give an example of spurious correlation, similar to the

one above, for either CO2 levels or temperature
anomalies.
Answer-
An example of the spurious correlation between CO2 levels
and another variable might be Homicides in Mexico and CO2
levels between 2015-2017 which follows a similar pattern.
(c) Choose an example of spurious correlation from Tyler
Vigen’s website. Explain whether you think it is a
coincidence, or whether this correlation could be due
to one or more other variables.
Answer-
A correlation given on the site is the one between US spending on
Science, Space, and Technology and Suicides by hanging,
strangulation, and suffocation. While the spending on Science has
increased in the US due to the constant technological race the
Suicides by hanging increase due to increasing Suicide rates and
better safety regulations for other methods of Suicide, the
variables seem unrelated and seem to be only controlled by
population levels and security measures taken against other
methods of suicide increasing.