The class is Introductory Statistics and I teach in the psychology department. I let my students know early this semester that the course might as well be named "Introductory Statistics - The Climate Crisis Edition." :)
WARNING: For anyone who is a climate science or mathematical purist, I located the means for the problems below in the following table, but I pulled some of the numbers in my problems below out of thin air - like the standard deviations...
http://www.eriposte.com/environment/global_warming/global-warming-is-real.htmIf the average annual temperature for a particular country was distributed normally over the past several hundred years, then adding recent record-breaking hot years to this data set will yield a distribution that:
a. normal
b. skewed left
c. skewed right
d. bimodal
Methane is a greenhouse gas implicated in the climate crisis. The pre-industrial age concentration of methane in the atmosphere was about 700 ppb (parts per billion). By 1998 the concentration was 1745 ppb.
Scientists are very concerned about the possibility that a small increase in temperatures worldwide could allow the permafrost in Russia to melt, which would release a huge amount of methane that is currently trapped in that frozen tundra. During the 1990’s, the average increase in methane = 7.0 ppb/yr and the standard deviation was 2.11 ppb. In 1994, Russia had a particularly warm year and the increase in methane that year was 12 ppb. What is the percentile rank of the year 1994?
During the 1990’s, the average increase in methane concentrations in our atmosphere = 7.0 ppb/yr and the standard deviation was 2.11 ppb. What is the probability that the increase in methane concentrations for any one year during the 1990’s was between 5 ppb and 10 ppb?
We know that concentrations of greenhouse gases must be drastically reduced to levels below what we had in the 1990s. Several powerful nations want to try to decrease their emissions independently and do not want to be bound to an international treaty. These powerful nations agree, however, that if nations cannot reduce emissions on their own, then there will have to be a binding worldwide treaty in the very near future. Imagine that the nations of the world meet later this year and decide that if, during any year in the future, the increase in methane concentrations is as high as any of the years in the top 75% for the decade of the 1990’s then they will all sign a worldwide binding treaty. During the 1990’s, the average increase in methane concentrations in our atmosphere = 7.0 ppb/yr and the standard deviation was 2.11 ppb. What amount of increase in methane concentrations denotes the top 75% for the decade of the 1990’s?
During the 1990’s, the average increase in methane concentrations in our atmosphere = 7.0 ppb/yr and the standard deviation was 2.11 ppb. Did the rate of increase climb within the decade? The average increase in methane concentrations for the first 4 years was 3.95 ppb. What is the probability that any sample of 4 years during the 1990’s will have an average increase of just 3.95 ppb or less?
These charts came in handy, too: