|
|
 |
|
|
Statistical analysis projects future temperatures in north america by ferujkll sdff
|
|
|
Statistical analysis projects future temperatures in north america |
|
|
|
|
|
Business,Business News,Business Opportunities
|
|
They performed advanced statistical analysis on two different NorthAmerican regional climate models and were able to estimateprojections of temperature changes for the years 2041 to 2070, aswell as the certainty of those projections. The analysis, developed by statisticians at Ohio State University,examines groups of regional climate models, finds the commonalitiesbetween them, and determines how much weight each individualclimate projection should get in a consensus climate estimate. Through maps on the statisticians' website ( www.stat.osu.edu/~sses/collab_warming.html ), people can see how their own region's temperature will likelychange by 2070 -- overall, and for individual seasons of the year. Given the complexity and variety of climate models produced bydifferent research groups around the world, there is a need for atool that can analyze groups of them together, explained NoelCressie, professor of statistics and director of Ohio State'sProgram in Spatial Statistics and Environmental Statistics.
Cressie and former graduate student Emily Kang, now at theUniversity of Cincinnati, present the statistical analysis in apaper published in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation andGeoinformation. "One of the criticisms from climate-change skeptics is thatdifferent climate models give different results, so they argue thatthey don't know what to believe," he said. "We wanted todevelop a way to determine the likelihood of different outcomes,and combine them into a consensus climate projection. We show thatthere are shared conclusions upon which scientists can agree withsome certainty, and we are able to statistically quantify thatcertainty." For their initial analysis, Cressie and Kang chose to combine tworegional climate models developed for the North American RegionalClimate Change Assessment Program. Though the models produced awide variety of climate variables, the researchers focused ontemperatures during a 100-year period: first, the climate models'temperature values from 1971 to 2000, and then the climate models'temperature values projected for 2041 to 2070.
The data were brokendown into blocks of area 50 kilometers (about 30 miles) on a side,throughout North America. Averaging the results over those individual blocks, Cressie andKang's statistical analysis estimated that average landtemperatures across North America will rise around 2.5 degreesCelsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2070. That result is inagreement with the findings of the United Nations IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change, which suggest that under the sameemissions scenario as used by NARCCAP, global average temperatureswill rise 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2070.Cressie and Kang's analysis is for North America -- and not onlyestimates average land temperature rise, but regional temperaturerise for all four seasons of the year. Cressie cautioned that this first study is based on a combinationof a small number of models. Nevertheless, he continued, thestatistical computations are scalable to a larger number of models.The study shows that climate models can indeed be combined toachieve consensus, and the certainty of that consensus can bequantified.
The statistical analysis could be used to combine climate modelsfrom any region in the world, though, he added, it would require anexpert spatial statistician to modify the analysis for othersettings. The key is a special combination of statistical analysis methodsthat Cressie pioneered, which use spatial statistical models inwhat researchers call Bayesian hierarchical statistical analyses. The latter techniques come from Bayesian statistics, which allowsresearchers to quantify the certainty associated with anyparticular model outcome. All data sources and models are more orless certain, Cressie explained, and it is the quantification ofthese certainties that are the building blocks of a Bayesiananalysis. In the case of the two North American regional climate models, hisBayesian analysis technique was able to give a range of possibletemperature changes that includes the true temperature change with95 percent probability.
After producing average maps for all of North America, theresearchers took their analysis a step further and examinedtemperature changes for the four seasons. On their website, theyshow those seasonal changes for regions in the Hudson Bay, theGreat Lakes, the Midwest, and the Rocky Mountains. In the future, the region in the Hudson Bay will likely experiencelarger temperature swings than the others, they found. That Canadian region in the northeast part of the continent islikely to experience the biggest change over the winter months,with temperatures estimated to rise an average of about 6 degreesCelsius (10.7 degrees Fahrenheit) -- possibly because ice reflectsless energy away from Earth's surface as it melts. Hudson Baysummers, on the other hand, are estimated to experience only anincrease of about 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.1 degrees Fahrenheit).
According to the researchers' statistical analysis, the Midwest andGreat Lakes regions will experience a rise in temperature of about2.8 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit), regardless of season.The Rocky Mountains region shows greater projected increases in thesummer (about 3.5 degrees Celsius, or 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit) thanin the winter (about 2.3 degrees Celsius, or 4.1 degreesFahrenheit). In the future, the researchers could consider other climatevariables in their analysis, such as precipitation. This research was supported by NASA's Earth Science TechnologyOffice. The North American Regional Climate Change AssessmentProgram is funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S.Department of Energy, the National Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officeof Research and Development. I am Luggage & Travel Bags writer, reports some information about hydraulic hammer tools , dead blow hammers.
Related Articles -
hydraulic hammer tools, dead blow hammers,
|
Rate This Article  |
|
|
|
|
|
Do you Agree or Disagree? Have a Comment? POST IT!
| Reader Opinions |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author Login |
|
|
 |
Advertiser Login
ADVERTISE HERE NOW!
Limited Time $60 Offer!
90 Days-1.5 Million Views
|
|
TIM FAY
After 60-plus years of living, I am just trying to pass down some of the information that I have lea...more
|
|
|
|
|
LAURA JEEVES
At LeadGenerators, we specialise in content-led Online Marketing Strategies for our clients in the t...more
|
|
|
|
|
ALEX BELSEY
I am the editor of QUAY Magazine, a B2B publication based in the South West of the UK. I am also the...more
|
|
|
|
|
GENE MYERS
Author of four books and two screenplays; frequent magazine contributor. I have four other books "in...more
|
|
|
|
|
SUSAN FRIESEN
Located in the lower mainland of B.C., Susan Friesen is a visionary brand strategist, entrepreneur, ...more
|
|
|
|
|
STEPHEN BYE
Steve Bye is currently a fiction writer, who published his first novel, ‘Looking Forward Through the...more
|
|
|
|
|
SHALINI MITTAL
A postgraduate in Fashion Technology. Shalini is a writer at heart! Writing for her is an expression...more
|
|
|
|
|
ADRIAN JOELE
I have been involved in nutrition and weight management for over 12 years and I like to share my kn...more
|
|
|
|
|
JAMES KENNY
James is a Research Enthusiast that focuses on the understanding of how things work and can be impro...more
|
|
|
|
