Description:
The mean values reported in this data set for New York were computed by averaging historic annual mean temperature values from 40 weather stations interspersed throughout the state. The plot of New York's mean winter temperature values over the years 1900 to 1999 clearly shows great variability from year to year. The linear regression model has an R2 value of 0.0483, indicating that there is a weak linear trend in the data. Nonetheless, we do observe a slight increase over time in mean temperatures. The linear model has a slope of 0.0234 which indicates that, according to the linear model, winter mean temperatures are increasing 0.0234 degrees Fahrenheit per year. This is equivalent to 2.34 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1.3 degrees Celsius) per century. These trendline numbers cannot be taken as proof that atmospheric warming is happening either statewide or globally, but they are of the same order of magnitude as current predictions made by climate warming experts.
We obtained data sets for New York and the other lower 48 states from the United States Historical Climate Network (USHCN), part of NOAA's National Climate Data Center. The USHCN has historical records for 1221 weather stations in the lower 48 states, of which 1182 are currently operational. The first weather station in New York-listed by USHCN began operation in 1854 in the vicinity of Cooperstown. By 1936 the number of stations increased to 59, which is the number operational today. For this data set, we selected the weather stations that had continuous winter mean values from 1900 to 1999; there were 40 in all. The location names of these stations are: Auburn, Bath, Binghamton, Brockport, Buffalo, Canton, Chazy, Cooperstown, Cortland, Elmira, Fredonia, Geneva, Gloversville, Hemlock, Indian Lake, Ithaca, Lake Placid, Little Falls, Lockport, Lowville, Maryland, Mohonk Lake, New York Central Park, Ogdensburg, Oswego, Penn Yan, Port Jervis, Poughkeepsie, Rochester, Setauket Strong, Syracuse, Troy Lock & Dam, Tupper Lake, Utica, Watertown, West Point, and Yorktown Heights.
