Environmental Data Analysis BC ENV 3017
Exercise: Hudson River Discharge and Climate Change
Global climate change
most likely will have an effect on the hydrologic cycle and this affect
river discharge rates. We want to find out if the discharge rate of the
Hudson River is affected by this.
-
Download
the
Hudson River flow data from the web site of the class: The data have
been measured for the later years and reconstructed from other measurements
for the earlier years for the Green
Island Station of the Hudson River. See below for the sources of the
data.
-
Calculate the basic statistics
of the discharge rate (mean, median, SD). Make a histogarm of the discharge
data, do they appear to be normally distributed?
-
Plot the discharge rate
as a time series (line plot).
-
Add a linear trend line
curve to the data and display equation and r2 on the plot. Is
the discharge rate increasing or decreasing with time?
-
Perform a t-test (use
the LINEST function, calculate the t-statistic and use TDIST to calculate
the P-value. USe the help files in EXCEL to help yourself if you have any
problems). Is there a significant trend in the discharge rate of the Hudson
as a function of time?
-
Determine the significance
of the correlation also by using the REGRESSION function. Make sure that
the P-value is the same as the one obtained above.
Source of data:
USGS:
New York NWIS-W Data Retrieval
Hudson
River At Green Island Ny (01358000)
EPA:
Watershed Information Middle Hudson