Assignment 3: More of this Pesky Quantitative Stuff



  1. a) The following table shows US average annual temperatures in three separate time periods 1950-1962, 1970-1982, 2000-2012. Using the Z-test determine if there is a significant difference in mean values between the 2000-2012 data set and the other two data sets.

    b)The year 2012 set a record for the highest annual average temperature for the US. Using 2000-2011 data is the value for 2012 significant?

    c) From this analysis, give an argument either for or against the assumption that the annual temperature of the US is increasing as a response to global climate change

    1950,51.43 1951,51.15 1952,52.33 1953,53.39 1954,53.34 1955,51.72 1956,52.35 1957,52.10 1958,51.97 1959,52.13 1960,51.45 1961,51.88 1962,51.90 1970,51.64 1971,51.71 1972,51.39 1973,52.31 1974,52.30 1975,51.53 1976,51.51 1977,52.58 1978,51.07 1979,50.92 1980,52.41 1981,53.15 1982,51.37 2000,53.27 2001,53.67 2002,53.21 2003,53.30 2004,53.12 2005,53.64 2006,54.32 2007,53.67 2008,52.31 2009,52.39 2010,53.02 2011,53.21 2012,55.34


  2. The table below shows the population of Oregon counties from 1950 to 2010. You have just been giving a job as resource manager for the state of Oregon, and you need to examine the population growth for some selected counties as shown in the table below:

    Historical Population of Oregon Counties
    In units of thousands of people

    County 2010 2000 1990 1980 1970 1960 1950
    Clackamas 382 339 278 242 166 113 87
    Deschutes 172 117 75 62 30 23 22
    Jackson 208 182 146 132 95 74 59
    Lane 349 323 284 275 213 163 126
    Marion 321 285 228 205 151 121 101
    Washington 533 448 311 246 158 92 61
    Yamhill 96 85 65 55 40 32 33



    This is your first day on the job and your boss gives you a bunch of data to distill to answer the following questions. You should make use of the visual regression exponential growth tool as described and linked HERE




    Using that tool adjust the growth rate until the line seems to go through most of the point. Remember this is a growth rate per decade.

      a) Which county is growing fastest and what is that growth rate? (attach a screen shot of your result); If new schools are built for every new 5000 people, how many new schools would need to be built in this county by the year 2050?

      b) Enter the data for Lane country into the tool and attach a screen shot of it.

      • What do you think the best growth rate would be for the data?
      • What is the growth rate that you get if you just use the 1950-1980 data?
      • In 1980 a standard emerged that there should be 1 c0untry sheriff for every 3000 citizens of any county. Based on the 1950-1980 growth rate, what would be the population of Lane county in 2010 and how many county sherrifs should we have?
      • In the decade of the 1980s, population growth in Lane County was essentially flat - What event or events do you think happened (do some actual research here) to cause this very low lower growth rate.

      c) Now derive the growth rate for the 1990-2010 data for Lane County. Make a prediction for the population in the year 2040 for Lane county and state how reliable you feel that prediction is.




  3. There are currently (as of  July 2018)  409 parts per million of CO2 in our atmosphere. In Oct 2000 the concentration of CO2 was 367 ppm.

    a) calculate the average growth rate in this period

    b) at this growth rate what will the concentration of CO2 in the year 2100.

    A reasonable approximation of the amount of surface temperature (in degrees C) increase as related to CO2concentration is given by:

     

    ΔT = 0.8 * ΔF

    where for CO2

    ΔF = 5.35 * LN(Cnow/Cbefore);   Cbefore = 280 ppm

    Note that LN stands for the natural logarithm;  for instance ln(10) = 2.32 (just type ln 10 in to Google) 

    ΔF (what we call climate forcing) represents the change in flux due to changing CO2 levels and that determines ΔT

     

    c) Using the result obtained in Part b, what is the predicted temperature change in the year 2100 and is this prediction above or still below the Paris accord agreement of no more than 2C before 2100 above the pre-industrialized temperature?

     

    Over the last two years, CO2 growth is occurring at a larger rate than the recent average. This rate is approximately 0.8% per year and is likely to continue to accelerate.  Any change in temperature (given by the previous formula) that is larger than 4C is deemed to be a climate catastrophe and completely violates the Paris Accord:

    The US and China are the only relevant players in this acceleration which leads to the two scenarios below:

    Scenario 1: China abruptly halts its emission of green house gases  Out to the year 2100 the US growth rate will be 1.1% per year as we burn our remaining coal and frack our remaining gas and continue to drive excessively. 

    e)      Under that scenario, what is the year that US only emissions drive us past the +4C mark?

    Scenario 2:  The party of enlightenment is voted into office as the Trump alternative in 2020 and immediately halts US emission of greenhouse gases.  Now only China matters. Out to the year 2100 the China growth rate will be 1.8% per year as they feverishly emulate the US but at a much larger scale.

      f)        Under that scenario, what is the year that Chinese only emissions drive us past the +4C mark?

     

  4. Do some research and summarize the reasons that some scientists think there is a likely chance that "Runaway Methane Global Warming" will actually happen. Also summarize some of the past geological evidence for past runaway events (e.g. methane burps). Finally, conclude whether or not, based on your research, you think this is a serious concern.





  5. Currently there is much attention being devoted to replacing gasoline as a primary fuel.  At the moment there is much hype (e.g. Elon Musk) about ramping up the production of electric vehicles via the  Tesla Gigafactory

    Go to the above linked site and read about the planned production of 500,000 vehicles annually.    Your team is hired as the consulting team for the GigaFactory.  There are numerous studies on the lithium supply chain/problem, etc that you can easily find via a Google Search.   You are to access a variety of reports and synthesize a 500 word consulting report to Tesla on the probability that they can actually meet this production goal with existing resources.  If they can not meet this goal, what needs to be then done to find new resources.  Here are two resources to get you started:

    Resource 1

    Resource 2