NATS 101, Sections 31 and 32
Homework #6 – Seasonal Changes around the Globe
Due in class on Monday, April 28, 2008
Your assignment is to choose three cities located at vastly different latitudes, gather some astronomical and climatic information about each of them, place this information in a table, and write a paragraph summarizing the differences between them.
Selection
of cities. The first city
must be located well within the tropics, latitude must be less than 15°; the
second city must be located in the lower middle latitudes, latitude must be in
range from 30° to 45° (includes most of the continental United States); and the
third city must be a high latitude location, latitude must be higher than
60°. You are free to choose any cities
in the world as long as one is located within each of the three latitude zones
specified above and you can dig up the required information. Please
select your own cities. If multiple
students select the same three cities, those students will not be given credit
for this assignment!
Information to collect. The data you gather should be placed into a table. The table will be composed of 15 columns of data. Here is a list of the required columns:
Presentation of results. All of the information above must be presented in a table. Therefore, you will need a table with 4 rows (one heading row to label the columns, and one row for each of the three cities), and the 15 columns specified above. You will have to decide how to lay out this information on a page to make a nice, easy-to-read presentation. One possibility is to try to lay out your results in a landscape orientation rather than a portrait orientation. If you are unable to fit your entire table neatly across the page, you may decide to somehow split up groups of columns on multiple lines, but the rows should not be split up, so that a reader can easily compare the three different cities. If you decide to do this, you should re-label the city name in the far right column, so that a reader can easily match the correct information with the correct city. The reader must also be clear about what information is contained in each column. For column headings, you can label them fully within the table or use footnotes. An example of how to use a footnote would be to label a column using a number in parentheses {for example, (7)}, then below the table explain each footnote, for example
(7) Solar angle at noon on the summer solstice in degrees.
Summary paragraph. After presenting your table, you need to write a summary paragraph that compares the seasonal changes (yearly ranges) in length of day, solar angle at noon, and monthly average high temperature among the three cities you selected. You should also work in some kind of general statement about how the severity of seasonal changes is related to latitude (location on Earth).
Grading. 50% of the grade will be based on the correctness of your data and calculations; 30% will be based on neatness and presentation of the results; and 20% will be based on what is contained in the summary paragraph (both content and grammar).
Where to find information / preciseness of information. I will leave where to find information to you. It should not be difficult. Much is available on line (use search engines). Try not to become fixated with a particular city. If it is difficult to find information for a city, try another one. Local times and length of day numbers should be within the nearest minute, i.e., you do not have to include seconds in your results (unless you want to). The latitude for each city can be rounded to the nearest integer number in degrees, i.e., you do not have to include minutes and seconds of latitude in your results (unless you want to).