The Relationship Between
Temperature and the Latitude
and Longitude
By:
Angela Couture
Jaime Frade
Rita Argelo
Abstract

Question: Is there a relationship between
temperature and global coordinates? Can latitude
and longitude predict the temperature of that
location?
 Answer: After analysis, latitude is a strong
predictor of the temperature.


56 major cities that
spanned across the US
were chosen
 Each year, the daily min
temp in January was
tallied
 A monthly average was
computed for each city
This study will
concentrate on
temperatures collected
in the US from 1931
to 1960
Data collection
City, State
Jan Temp
Latitude
Longitude
Mobile, AL
44
31.2
88.5
Montgomery, AL
38
32.9
86.8
Phoenix, AZ
35
33.6
112.5
Little Rock, AR
31
35.4
92.8
Los Angeles, CA
47
34.3
118.7
San Francisco, CA
42
38.4
123.0
Denver, CO
15
40.7
105.3
New Haven, CT
22
41.7
73.4
Wilmington, DE
26
40.5
76.3
Washington, DC
30
39.7
77.5
Each city’s
average temp
was computed
for the month of
January
 Each city’s
coordinates
were recorded

Preliminary Analysis

Identify outliers in the data.
Preliminary Analysis
75+
Jan.Temp- x
x
50+
x
x3
x
xx
x
xx x
x x
xx2x x
25+
xx 22xx3 x
x x xx 2xx
x
xx xx x
x 2x x
x
0+
xx
----+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+--Latitude
25.0
30.0 35.0
40.0
45.0
50.0
Scatter plot for Latitude
75+
Jan.Tempx
x
50+
x
x xx x
x
x x
x
x x
x
2
xxx
x x x
25+ x 22xx x x x
x x
- x
xx xx
x
x xx
x
x
x
2
- xx
x x
x
x
0+
x x
--+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+----Longitud
70
80
90
100
110
120
Scatter plot for Longitude
Climate
Cool Illustration
Analysis of Variance
The regression equation is
Jan.Temp. = 109 - 2.11 Latitude
Predictor
Constant
Latitude
S = 7.156
Coef SE Coef
108.728
7.056
-2.1096 0.1794
R-Sq = 71.9%
T
P
15.41 0.000
-11.76 0.000
R-Sq(adj) = 71.4%
Conclusion

The temperature and latitude for each U.S. city
has a strong negative linear association.
 In answer to our original research question,
yes, it does appear that latitude is an adequate
predictor of temperature in U.S. cities.