SIO25 Fall24 – Homework #1

Java Python SIO25 Fall24 – Homework #1 – Due October 4.

Problem 1)

In this problem you will examine information from a single ground-based weather station at the international airport in San Diego, California. The raw data will include the following.

• Air temperature (AT) – The temperature of air in a shaded location that is approximately 2 m aboveground level.

• Relative humidity (%RH) – The amount of water vapor in the air relative to how much it can hold at a given temperature.

• Dew point temperature (DPT) – The temperature air needs to be cooled (at a constant pressure) for it to reach RH = 100%.

• Wind speed (WS) – The average speed of the wind over a given period of time such as 15 minutes or half an hour

• Wind gust (WG) – The maximum wind speed recorded during a given period of time.

• Precipitation (Pct) – This is the amount of rain, snow, sleet, or hail that collects in a standardized container during a given period of time – In the case of the data you   will be looking at this is volume of precipitation that collects in one hour.

Begin by launching the National Weather Service weather conditions page for the San Diego Airport

https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=pqr&sid=KSAN&num=72&raw=0

a) What is the latitude longitude and elevation of the station?

b) Look at the graph of temperature, dew point, and relative humidity. What is the

relationship between air temperature and relative humidity? Try to be quantitative with your answer.

c) What is the highest and lowest temperature for all three days?

d) What is the temperature range for all three days?

e) What is the average temperature for all three days?  Hint- click the three bars at the upper right-hand corner of the graph which will allow the raw data to be downloaded to a spreadsheet.

f) Find the time when the dew point temperature was as close as possible to the air temperature – what time of day was this and what were the air and dew point temperatures?

SIO25 Fall24 – Homework #1

g) Find the time of the maximum relative humidity. What is the value of relative humidity and how does this relate to the answer in f)?

Problem 2)

This problem will examine the Biome for an assigned country. Begin by opening the Biome Viewer:http://media.hhmi.org/biointeractive/biomeviewer_web/index.html from the Biointeractive Program at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

You have been assigned a country to investigate by your TA. Begin this part of the problem by typing the name of your assigned country into the searchbox. The program will display this country with a virtual “stickpin”. Once it does, use the gear symbol at the upper-left to turn on the political boundaries and yield amap outline of the country. You will need to click on “More” to answer some of these questions.

a) How many biomes are present within this country?

b) What is the biome that represents the greatest portion of the country?

c)   What is the maximum and minimum monthly average temperature?

d) What is the maximum and minimum monthly precipitation?

e) Under the “Wildlife” tab click on the “Threat Filter Level” and give the number of species that are near threatened, threatened, endangered and/or critically endangered.

Problem 3)

This problem will explore how weather statistic relate to climate.

Begin by opening the Climate Analyzer:https://climatereanalyzer.org/

from the Climate Institute of the University of Maine. On the menu along the left of the

globe, select “Today’sWeather Maps”. After the label at the top of the globe says “Today’s

Weather Maps”, run your cursor along all the variety of variables along the left of the globe

a)   Click on the “Avg 2-m Temperature”. What is the general relationship between temperature and latitude? You may want to view the lower map view that shows the entire globe in a single view.

b)  Based on the “Avg 2-m temperature” name three countries (or regions within countries) with the highest temperatures and give an approximate estimate of their temperatures.

c)   Now click on the “2m Temperature Anomaly” which refers to the departure of the currentday's temperature from along-term mean for the same day of the year. The anomalies are calculated from a 1979–2000.  Which countries (or regions within countries) have the highest “2m Temperature Anomaly” and what is their approximate temperature anomaly?

d)  At the menu at the top of the page goto “Climate Data” and then in the pull- down menu “Daily Surface Air Temperature”.  You should see a graph of temperature.  Select the red line at the mostrecent date (often about a week behind the current date)