Geography 417

Step 2. Answer the questions by filling in the response boxes provided below.

1. On a climograph, monthly precipitation is depicted with a (fill in the blank) (1) graph.

2. Temperature is shown on a climography with a (fill in the blank) (2) graph.

Part II: Making a Paper Climograph

Perhaps the best way to learn how to read a climograph is to make a few.  First you need climate data.  Remember that for the most part climate is the pattern of temperature and precipitation over a series of years for a place.  A cool website called worldclimate.com allows you to search for temperature and precipitation data for many, many cities around the world.  Click on the link and open worldclimate.com in a separate window.

Once you are in the site, type into the search box: Santa Monica Pier.  The server will return a link to the Santa Monica Pier.  Click on it and it will give you a rather lengthy list of places nearby Santa Monica Pier for which data is also available.  Scroll down through the list until you find Santa Monica Pier.

Below Santa Monica Pier are several links that contain data.  Click on 24-hr Average Temperature and this will open take you to a page featuring a table of average monthly temperatures recorded at the Santa Monica Pier for each month.  The average monthly temperature is derived by dividing the sum of the month's average daily temperature by the number of days in the month. There are several ways of calculating "average daily temperature", but generally it is derived by adding the daily high temperature to the daily low and dividing the sum by two.  The yearly temperature range is also important to know. It is the difference between the hottest and coolest month's average temperature.

Step 3. Read the question below and provide an answer in the response box.

3. Fill in the blank: If today's high temperature was 100 degrees and today's low was 50 degrees, then today's average 24 hour
temperature would be (3) degrees .

Step 4. Examine the 24 hour temperature table for Santa Monica Pier and answer the following questions:

4-5: Fill in the blanks: August is the hottest month at Santa Monica Pier with an average monthly temperature of (4) .The month with the lowest average daily temperature at the Santa Monica Pier is (5) .

6. Fill in the blank. At Santa Monica Pier, the yearly temperature range is (6) degrees Fahrenheit.

Fill in the blank. In Santa Monica, the average yearly rainfall total for Santa Monica pier isnches and the .

Step 4. Next open either of the blank climograph links below, which will open a new browser window containing a blank climograph.  These blank climographs were adapted from the Partnership for Environmental Education and Rural Health website at Texas A&M. The third link below will begin a download of a powerpoint file with a tutorial on climographs.

• Blank climograph (.jpeg)
• Blank climograph (.pdf)
• Download: Powerpoint based Climograph Tutorial

Step 5. Print out your blank climograph (you may need to use the "landscape" setting on your printer) and using the correct graphical symbol (line or bar) plot the temperature by month for Santa Monica Pier.  Make sure that you refer to the scale on the right hand side of the climograph to plot temperature.

Step 6. Make sure that you title the graph with the location and in small type, print the source of the data and range of years this data was collected.  Also it would be good to put on the latitude and longitude coordinates.  You might even put the elevation as well.   Put your name in the lower left corner. 

Step 7. In your browser window displaying Santa Monica's temperature table, click on the back button.  Again you will see the list of climate variables for Santa Monica pier.  Note that there are two of them for Average Rainfall.  Click on either of these links to open a rainfall table. The uppermost one has the longest temporal frame for its data, so it may be more accurate..  Answer the three questions below:

7. What month is rainiest in Santa Monica? (7)

8. June and July are the driest months in Santa Monica. The average rainfall is in these two months is listed as (fill in the blank) : (8) inches though this does not mean that it has never rained here in those months. Instead it is an indication that on average, monthly rainfall is less than one-tenth of an inch, and one can see this by looking at the average monthly rainfall in millimeters.

9 Fill in the blank. Santa Monica Pier gets about (9) inches of rainfall per year.

** Remember. These numbers are averages and the odd thing about "average" weather is that it seems that it never happens.  Some years it may be very rainy and other very droughty.  Some years are hot and some are cool. Somewhere in the middle is the average, but it may actually be rare to have an "average" year.  This is especially true in desert climates where the standard deviation is more telling than the average.

Step 8. On the same graph paper that you plotted Santa Monica's temperature, plot its monthly and yearly rainfall totals.  Use the appropriate graphical device for plotting rainfall and use the left axis as a guide for plotting the data.  In the box labeled KEY, write the words temperature and rainfall, and next to them draw symbols that indicate to your readers what data the lines and bars represent.  This graph you will turn in to your instructor on the assigned date.  Make sure your name is on it.

Part III: Using Microsoft Excel 2007 to make Climographs

Luckily, we have computer software that can help us create a variety of high quality graphics from data such as this, and as a certified educational professional you are expected to be reasonably competent users of common software such as Excel.  Excel is probably the most widely used spreadsheet program in the world and it has a few graph making features that you will use to make a series of climographs of locations around California.  

Step 9.  Open MS Excel, you may need to launch it from your start button on the lower taskbar.  From there, if Excel is installed, you will find it by clicking on All Programs and then you'll find it as one of the programs in Microsoft Office.   These directions are written for MS Office 2007, so your version of Excel may be slightly different.  If you have Excel 2003, then click here to open the appropriate instructions.

Step 10. At the bottom tab on worksheet, double click on the word "Sheet 1" and rename the worksheet Santa Monica. (see screen capture).  Save the file now..use this naming convention: geog417_climo_insert your last name.  So if your last name is Jones, you would save it as: geog417_climo_jones.doc.

Step 11.  Return to your browser window.  Open (or reopen) the webpage that has the rainfall data for Santa Monica Pier.  Place your cursor in the blank, upper leftmost cell of the rainfall table (just to the left of "Jan").  Click and drag your cursor down and to the right until all the data in the table is highlighted.  (see screen capture)

Step 12.  Press simultaneously the Control button and C (Ctrl + C) to copy the data.  Or you can click on Edit and select copy from the drop down menu in the web browser.

Step 13.  Return to Excel (Alt + Tab) and paste (Ctrl + V) the data in to the upper left most cell (the cell in column A, row 1 is cell A1) (see screen capture)

Step 14.  Return to the browser window (Alt + Tab) and click on the back button.  Select from the list of Santa Monica Pier Data the 24 hr Average Temperature .  Repeat steps 11 through 13, copying and pasting the temperature data into Excel, but placing it immediately below the rainfall data.  The blank cell to the left of Jan and above degrees C (°C).  It would be in cell A4.  (see screen capture).

Step 15.  Now you have the data necessary to make a climograph, but you must delete some of it to make the graph look better.  First eliminate the rain data recorded in millimeters.  Place your cursor on the number two (2) on to the left of the second column that begins with "mm". Notice that your cursor turns into a bold right pointing arrow (-->)  . Click once to select (or highlight) the entire row. 

Step 16.  Click on the word Edit in the menu bar at the top of your window.  From the drop down menu select delete (see screen capture).  The ENTIRE second row of data should disappear.  Repeat the this deletion process with the second set of months and the row of Celsius temperature data.  You should have only the top row of months, followed by a row of "inches" and a row of "° F". 

Step 17.   Next, you need to move the year end average one cell away from the monthly data to get a nice graph. Place your cursor on the column N header cell above the word "Year" in cell N1.    This will highlight the column.  Next, select from the "Insert" drop down menu "Column".  This will put a blank column between the year end totals and the December averages.   You are now ready to graph.

Step 18.  Place your cursor in cell A1 (upper left) and drag your mouse to cell N3, containing the yearly average for temp (61.2).  All the data should be highlighted. 

BEGIN 2007 Instructions

Step 19 C lick on the insert tab above the top tool bar" (see screen capture).

Step 20.  From the “Column” option among the Chart types, select a 2D column known as clustered column. It should be the first one that appears (see screen capture).

Step 21.  Click it once and a two-column, clustered bar graph will appear (see screen capture).

This graph is incomplete and has some problems.  You’ll need to make the tall, red bars that represent temperature into a line graph.  You’ll also need to put a second axis on this chart to make it so readers can see that inches of precipitation is on measured on the left axis and degrees Fahrenheit is measured on a secondary, right hand axis.  You also need a chart title and labels for the axes.  Listed below are the steps you need to take to do this is Excel 2007.

Step 20. Click once on the tall red bars.  This will activate or ‘highlight’ them.  Right click once to open a small dialog window. Select Change Series. (screen capture).

Step 21. From the the options in the Change Chart Type, select a line graph called, “Line with Markers” option (screen capture) click OK.  You should now have a red line with points showing temperature.

Step 22. Next, to separate the marker indicating the yearly average from the monthly data (if that appears for you), double click on the point between December and Year.  You’ll want to reformat that, so it disappears. Right click and select Format Data Point from the menu options (see image).

From the window that pops up (see screen capture) Select Marker Options and select None.  Then select, Line Color and then select "No Line" from the options available. 

Click back on your graph, this time selecting the point for Year-end temperature, repeat the last step from above and remove the line from it (see screen capture).

 Step 23.  Next add a secondary axis so you can separate the axes for temperature and precipitation. Click on the red temperature line to activate it. From the popup dialog box, chose “Secondary Axis” from the Series Options (screen capture). 

Step 24. Format each of the Y (vertical) axes…for temperature and precipitation.  Click once on the right vertical axis, tied to the precipitation totals. In the Layout window (Layout tab above the toolbar), click on the Axis Titles Icon, which will produce a drop down menu .  Select from the options available for the primary vertical axis, a rotated title (screen capture).  You’ll have to double click on the text box that you just made appear and type in “Precipitation” to give this axis its title.  Repeat this process for your secondary axis, this time inserting the word “Temperature”.

Now you only have a couple more steps to creating a cool climograph. 

Step 25. You’ll need a title, so activate the “layout” button at the top of the toolbar.  You can select from the drop down “Chart Title” option, then select the “Above Chart” option (screen capture). Here you should type “Santa Monica Pier”. I think a nice touch is to add the altitude, latitude and longitude coordinates for this location as well (see screen capture). If it all goes well, you should have a climograph that looks like the following.

So…when you have gotten your climograph to look the way you like it, you can save the format as a template. 

Chose a name like “Steves_climograph_template”. This allows you to save the look of your climograph and you can add new data to another file and apply this template to it and it will look very similar to the one that you just perfected.

To do so, highlight your data as you did at the beginning of this exercise, Click on any of the chart types and select “All Chart Types” from the bottom of the drop down menu. An “Insert Chart” window will open. Select “Templates” and then pick the template you saved before (screen capture)

Step 26.  Next make a climograph for Eureka, California.   You'll need to go back to the home page of worldclimate.com and type in Eureka, CA into their search window box.  Use the data from: EUREKA, CA., UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.  Then repeat the steps from above.  Remember to do rainfall first, then temperature.

Step 27. Answer the next two question, then finish up with steps 28-30.

Question 10.Fill in the blank. Eureka gets about (10) inches of precipitation or rainfall each year.

Question 11. Fill in the blank. The average monthly temperature in Eureka varies by about (11) degrees Fahrenheit over the course of a year.

Step 28.  Next insert 2 new worksheets into your Excel workbook. To do so, click Insert from top menu bar and select Worksheet from the drop down menu. Press F4 to add a second.

Step 29.  Next, select 3 additional locations in California that are representative of 3 other California climate types.  You may want to pick a high and/or low desert city, a Great Central Valley City, maybe someplace from the San Fernando Valley, or the High Sierras.  Remember to rename each worksheet so that I can identify the location by looking at the worksheet tabs which towns you have picked.

Step 30. When you have made a total of 5 climographs, attempt to answer the last bonus question and then submit the answers to this component of the lab by clicking submit below.  You are also to email your excel file as an attachment to your instructor.  Make sure that the file is is properly named ..see naming convention above) and is free of viruses. 

Bonus: Fill in the blank. Compare your climographs with each other.  Comparisons between the locations could be made easier and more useful to
viewers if the (12) on all the primary and secondary Y axes was consistent for each graph.

Type your name, email address and code into the boxes below and click sumbit.

When you click the button below, you will be directed to a web page that shows your answers. The instructor will get a copy of this email as well, but you may want to keep a copy for your records. If you are curious about the correct answers, please bring your questions to class