Databases Galore - 5

Latitude & Longitude lines

This series is about home-school, home-science, or science and school anywhere else where there are no rocket scientists (in the sense of how easy it is to calculate the realities of climate change - Databases Galore - 2).

Today's graphs will deal with the NASA data keyed on the two hemispheres of the Earth.

That would be the Northern and Southern hemispheres, plus sections or swaths of those hemispheres at various northern and southern latitudes, so as to give a comprehensive look at what the global trend is and how differing latitudes are being impacted by global warming.

First, remember that the Equator is the division line between the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

On today's graphs when you see a northern latitude you know it is north of the Equator, and conversely, a southern latitude is south of the Equator.

When one of the graph sections has both a N. and a S. latitude in it, you know that it is a band that begins on one side of the Equator, then goes past the Equator in a swath that has the Equator in its data used to graph that line.

Longitudes span both hemispheres, top to bottom, so don't worry about that for today because we are dealing with belt zones.

For example, the graph above right is a graph of both hemispheres, plus a combined detail (N. is red, S. is black, and the combined (avg. mean) is green).

The graph tells us that both the S. and N. Hemispheres are tracking in a similar direction, in sync with the general global trend.

Interestingly, the S. Hemisphere is on a warming trend greater than the norm and greater than the N. Hemisphere trend line (notice also that it did not begin that way).

The next graph to the right tracks various bands or swaths of the N. Hemisphere from the Equator up to 90 degrees N. latitude.

To get an idea of where that is, Seattle, WA is at 47°37′N latitude (47 degrees, 37 minutes) and Dallas, TX is at 32°47′N (32 degrees, 47 minutes).

Are we on to something like the global warming is a factor of where the population of civilization and its industries lie? (Latitudes of Cities is our homework it would seem).

Anyway, the next and final graph (to the right) for today is several swaths or bands of latitude zones in the S. Hemisphere.

Most of the bands follow a general warming trend, with the southern polar region wigging out all over the place.

Databases and graphs are not mysterious, no, what is mysterious is why fifth graders can figure this stuff out, but too many adults in congress can't admit to it for some reason:

Learning about temperature measurements is a concept that is introduced as early as elementary school. A mean is a mathematical average of a set of numbers. Many students are required to compute a mean as early as elementary school and later on in middle and even high school. In practical terms, you might want to find a mean temperature to determine what the weather is typically like in a certain area.

(How to Calculate the Mean Temperature). That page goes on to give simple instructions as to how to take multiple temperature readings over several days, then average for a 'mean' value (values above and below the 'mean' are called 'variations from the mean').

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.