The New York Times has published a database of temperatures

 (Links to an external site.

)

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of over 3,000 cities worldwide for the year 2019 (the 2020 edition is not available yet). Users can enter the name of a city and see how temperatures in 2019 compared to historical climate averages for that location. They also published an article reporting on

2019 being one of the hottest years on record (Links to an external site.)

 (Links to an external site.) for global surface temperatures.  There was also a summary article written about

record setting warmth in 2020 (Links to an external site.)

. Read these articles to provide some perspective on the discussion question below.

How much warmer was your city in 2019? (Links to an external site.)

 (Links to an external site.) (NYT, 2020)

2019 was the second warmest year on record (NYT, 2020) (Links to an external site.)

Where 2020’s record-setting heat was felt most. (NYT, 2021)

 (Links to an external site.)You

For fun, you may also want to take a look at temperature difference between now and when you were born using the following link:

How much hotter is your hometown than when you were born? (Links to an external site.)

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1. Using either the “hometown”  or “favorite place” that you listed in Discussion #1 (or the closest city that you can find to it in the database) describe briefly how the influence of latitude, distance from large water bodies, and altitude may affect the overall temperature (not precipitation) pattern that you observe on New York Times temperature graph from the “How Much Warmer” article.

2. Next, evaluate how the year 2019 compared to the longer term average annual temperature pattern for your location as depicted on the graph as the average range between the years 1981-2010. Note the daily average temperature range for your site and how much warmer/cooler 2019 was than average. At the top of the article it provides a comparison with the average annual temperature for the location. Did your  location follow the average global warming trend for the year as described in the other NYT articles? Were there any particular periods of anomalously warm (or cold) temperatures?  Be sure to look for the possibility of warmer/colder nights and not just day time temperatures. Don’t analyze precipitation data for now, we’ll look at that later on.

Keep in mind that the temperature graph shows 2019’s day-to-day high and low temperatures over a backdrop of historic long term averages and extremes for those days. This allows you to compare one year of data against a 30-year average. It is not a comparison with the previous year, or prediction of what will happen this year or coming years. 

After posting your description, have a look at posts from other students. Check out the data that one of your classmates describe and comment on the information they provide, adding any additional information that you think is noteworthy based on your own review of that data.