Global Average Temperature Lab. Life Sciences Lab Report

Global Average Temperature Lab
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Global temperatures have been an issue of concern for quite a long time, especially in the past three to four decades. The increased awareness of what drastic changes in global temperature can do to the environment, and hence species survival, has pushed research in the same even further. Global temperatures have been the reason for phenomena such as the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which usually varies with the global temperature and hence a direct indicator of global warming. The lab exercise was aimed at studying the variations in global temperature over the past one and a half centuries, in an attempt to carve out a trend that can be used for future predictions as well. There were various lessons and points learnt throughout the experiment.
What I Learnt from Tasks 1-7.
The seven tasks yielded a number of results that indeed tell more about global temperatures and climate change. From task 1, it was easy to note that the typical temperature changes from year to year had a range of about 0.05®C. The main takeaway from the experiment was that it is quite difficult to predict what the following year can yield, in terms of global temperatures. This is because, from the tabulation of the data, the data findings are quite mixed. The tables clearly show that the temperatures in subsequent years either increase or decrease randomly as well as constantly. There is actually no trend, and it is therefore a complex undertaking to place a finger on exactly how hot or cold the next year can be.
There is a very strong correlation between the values of the DJF and JJA temperatures. Over that period, these two have been changing rather similarly all through. The r² value is also close to the 1 mark, hence another statistical accuracy predictor. There is quite a bigger slope from the graph, for the years between 1875 a...