Mini-Project 2

We have been asked by Togo's Direction Generale de la Meteorologie Nationale to help determine if Togo's surface temperatures are increasing (or changing, and how), in light of the predictions by climate scientists.

In Mini-Project 1, you worked with annual data for a particular city, and produced a report. Those reports are contained here.

The Togolese have now also provided us with monthly data on those same cities: here are those data files (as provided to me). When you open them, they may ask you about "links" (which I chose to ignore, and it seemed okay). Ask if you have questions.

We would like to use that data to

1. visualize the data for our city,
2. determine if we believe that temperatures are, indeed, increasing, and how,
3. create a model (including periodicity, if appropriate) of temperature that would provide them with temperature predictions for the next several years into the future.

Each of you has been assigned a particular city, different from the one you studied in the first mini-project. You should all be working with a different partner (or partners). Group number corresponds to the city as initially given:

        1     Lome         
        2     Tabligbo     
        3     Kouma-Konda  
        4     Atakpame     
        5     Sotouboua    
        6     Sokode       
        7     Kara         
        8     Niamtougou   
        9     Mango        
       10     Dapaong      

Last Name,First Name,Group
Driehaus,Rachel,1
Zembrodt,Alli,1
Campbell,Austin,2
Edwards,Connor,2
Compton,Lizzy,3
Ficke,Terra,3
Dufek,Sally,4
Koors,Jacob,4
Stevens,Joey,4
Englert,Jacob,5
May,Adam,5
Farmer,Alyssa,6
McMahon,Maria,6
Frink,Clayton,7
Nielsen,Patrick,7
Gall,Matthew,8
Odhiambo,Donna,8
Bergman,Nathan,9
Milesky,Chris,9
Gillespie,Leah,10
Hardesty,Austin,10
Ruwe,Maria,10

1. You will begin with an evaluation phase, due 2/9, which you hand to me (one to two pages, typed) and which is strictly anonymous (i.e. no one else will ever see it):
   1. Evaluate your own report, especially comparing it to other reports.
   2. Compare your partner(s) and your contributions to the report. Perhaps you took different roles, which you can describe.
   3. Evaluate the report by the first group to study your city. Identify things that you like, and things that you think could have been done better.
   Notes:
   • You all have different backgrounds and skills. Some of you have already done some advanced statistics, or perhaps some math modeling. I'm not focused on that so much, as to make sure that everyone is contributing, and that everyone is doing good quality work (which will only improve as we go along, I'm quite sure).

   • I will continue to ask these questions of you and your partners for the rest of the course. You have at least one more (a third) mini-project, to incorporate rainfall, plus the final project, with different partners. So you will be evaluated by different people.

     First, be a good partner yourself!:)

     Second, do a fair and honest appraisal of others.

     I will issue you a participation grade at the end, which reflects only the synthesis of the reports, and I won't share individual comments to protect reviewers.

     If you ever felt that I were being unfair, you could request an audit by any faculty member from our department of your own choosing, who would review my methodology, and whose grade would overrule my own, if it differed.

2. Your group should produce a typed report in pdf format (no more than ten pages, including figures), as well as any scripts or code you used to produce your report.

   For this report, you will do the following:

   1. The first report is preliminary work. You can cite it, discuss it, and otherwise use it as you wish. You can suggest improvements, corrections, or pin a gold medal on it. It's just like all published research -- there for people to use, and take pot shots at!:)

      You may use it as the basis for your new report, but credit where credit is due.

      Your report will supplant this report -- that was preliminary work. This is intermediate work.

   2. Include background information on your city (or region), focusing especially on anything that might impact climate.
   3. Verify the yearly means using the finer monthly data. Can you determine why there are problems, if any, in the data used by the first group to study your city? This may provide questions for the Togolese.
   4. Ruthlessly identify outliers in the monthly data. If anything smells at all suspicious, you should identify it, create a record of your suspicions, and we should ask the question of the Togolese.
   5. Determine if either of your maximum and minimum temperature time-series demonstrate significant increases (or changes) in temperature over time. Discuss any characteristics of the data that seem relevant.
   6. Provide and discuss your best models $Temperature(time)$ for each of the two time-series. Evaluate your models.
   7. Provide graphs of the data with their model(s), with labels and title.
   8. Provide graphs of the residuals, with labels and title.
   9. Discuss what additional information might be useful moving forward, problems with your data, and any information you'd like to know from the Togolese meteorologists.
   10. Submit your report electronically, as well as a paper copy. Provide supporting scripts, etc., electronically only.
   The report is due Friday, 2/16.