Name: ________________________________ Date: ____________ Class: ________________
Seasonal Changes are so Trendy
Graphing atmospheric CO2 data to determine seasonal trends
Visit this webpage to have access to data sets of atmospheric CO2 taken from different parts of the world:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-keel.html
1. Choose any two sites from different parts of the world. You only have to do two out of the many that are shown.
2. Click on the “HTML” column of the site that you chose. Browse this information and record the station name, coordinates,
period of record, and the type of environment that the station is in in your notebook.
3. Click on the “Data” column. For your two sites, you will pick the same 24-month period and plot the amount of CO2 for
each month on a line graph in your notebook. Make a key to identify each of the two sites you selected.
4. Underneath your graph, answer these questions in complete sentences:
a. What trend do you see in the amount of CO2 in “warm” months?
b. What trend do you see in the amount of CO2 in “cold” months?
c. Write an explanation describing why this seasonal zig-zag pattern exists with respect to the carbon cycle.