Refer to this article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070216/sc_livescience/januaryiswarmestonrecord
They claim the global average temperature is 55.13 F or 286.0 Kelvin. How accurate is this measurement?
What is the error estimate?
What is the standard deviation of the mean temperature?
2007-02-25 14:02:59 · 1 answers · asked by Deckard2020 5 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Weather
When comparing temperatures in the context of global warming the mean land surface, air and sea surface temperatures recorded between 1961 and 1990 are the bench mark. The BM in this case is therefore the January average during this period which is 12.0 Celsius (53.6 Fahrenheit). This particular measurement is very accurate as the sample size is huge (many millions), a sample size of 1000 is usually the required minimum in order to obtain reliable data.
The measurement of 55.13F is an average that will have been taken from readings constantly being taken by weather stations around the world. It too will be extremely accurate. I couldn't put a precise figure on the accuracy but it should be within a margin of one one-thousandth of a degree.
As for the SD, not very practical. Would need more info than is available to calculate an accurate SD (I know I could look it up but my brain's tired). Suffice to say that there is a large sample size and the upper and lower temperature extremes will show considerable deviation from the mean, the SD will be very small.
2007-02-26 13:48:35 · answer #1 · answered by Trevor 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋