Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 4.8 Map showing the location of each city and state that recorded either the
highest temperature in the country, or the lowest temperature in the country, for the
months of January and July 2011. Source of base map: Esri software.
from January through July, due to the moderating effect of the oceans. The
January high temperatures also show a spatial relationship to latitude, as
they all lie in Florida, southern Texas, southern California, and Hawaii. The
effect of altitude, on the other hand, is to lower the temperature, as evident
in the numerous lows in January and in July in Colorado, Montana, and other
mountainous areas. The fact that the map is drawn using a single symbol is a
hindrance to interpretation. Although toggling each layer on and off aids in
interpretation, changing the symbology to a different symbol for each month
of the year to differentiate between the highs and the lows, and changing the
color and size during any particular month for a classification by temperature
would all aid in understanding the data.
Click on cities until you find one that recorded more than one instance of an
extreme temperature for the month. Does the fact that these cities are only
symbolized once affect your interpretation of the most common locations for
the extreme temperatures? In a similar way, select cities until you find one
that was tied with another city for the high or low temperature for that day.
Should those cities containing more than one extreme, or those that tied, be
symbolized differently from the others? If so, how? These cities might be bet-
ter symbolized as a larger or darker symbol to indicate that a tie or multiple
records have occurred.
 
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