Sun Trajectory

On Tuesday, October 23, 2012, I collected data to look at the sun trajectory.
I marked where the sun was at 6 different points throughout the day. I also collected the temperature,the pressure, the relative humidity, and the general weather conditions for each time point during day. I tried to get an evenly spaced amount of time throughout the day between the sunrise and the sunset to get a clear picture of the direction of the sun and the conditions throughout the day.

It was difficult to try to accurately pinpoint where the sun was in the sky as compared to the 2D drawing. I tried my best. it looked pretty good for the most part. It was not as clear of a curve as I thought it would be. The points did not make a perfect curve in line with the other points; however, this is what I perceived and what I recorded. 

Here is data as collected in my lab composition notebook

Here is the chart recreated to be more clear:

Time	Temperature	Pressure	Humidity	Weather conditions
7:53 am	47° F	30.17 in	100%	Chilly, sun rising, barely any clouds
10:33 am	63° F	30.21 in	72%	Comfortable, sunny, scattered clouds
12:03 pm	73° F	30.20 in	48%	Comfortable, sunny, few cirrus clouds
3:13 pm	80° F	30.14 in	23%	Warm, sunny, few cirrus clouds
5:03 pm	80° F	30.10 in	22%	Comfortable, sun going down, few cirrus clouds
6:43 pm	77° F	30.09 in	29%	Comfortable, sun going down, few cirrus clouds

Here is a picture of the sun trajectory recreated to be more clear:

Here is a sun trajectory graph according toe GAISMA (http://www.gaisma.com/en/location/macon-georgia.html):

Sun path
	Today
	June 21
	December 21
	Annual variation
	Equinox (March and September)
Sunrise/sunset
	Sunrise
	Sunset
Time
	00-02
	03-05
	06-08
	09-11
	12-14
	15-17
	18-20
	21-23

Barometer

This past week, we (my lab partner: Laura Lopez Sosa and I) made a barometer out of a glass container, a balloon, a straw, and tape. 

It looks like this...

Each day we marked on the paper of the composition notebook, where the point of the straw touched the paper. Then, looked at the Weather Channel application for the Iphone 4S to see what the barometric pressure was at that time and recorded it at the spot marked from the barometer. We repeated this process each day and were able to compare it to the days before. It was recorded around the same time of day each day. 

It was interesting to see the movement of the barometer, even if it was a small difference. 

The unit used to measure the atmospheric pressure is inches of Mercury, as measured by the Weather Channel. 

Here are the pictures and data collected from the barometer readings. 

Monday, October 15, 2012: The barometer was measured at 3:44 pm and the pressure was recorded as 29.87 inches of Mercury. 

Tuesday, October 16, 2012: The barometer was measured at 3:25 pm and the pressure was recorded as 29.92 inches of Mercury. 

Wednesday, October 17, 2012: The barometer was measured at 3:50 pm and the pressure was recorded as 29.87 inches of Mercury (the same as Monday). 

Thursday, October 18, 2012: The barometer was measured at 3:49 pm and the pressure was recorded as 29.79 inches of Mercury. 

Friday, October 19, 2012: The barometer was measured at 2:50 pm and the pressure was recorded as 29.83 inches of Mercury. 

Here is the notebook, so you can see the marked points better. 

Seasonality

This blog post will look at seasonality by looking at the differences of sunrises, sunsets, high temperature for the day, and low temperatures for the same day between six different cities within the relatively same latitude but different longitudes. The closer the city is to the equator the time of daylight and the time of nighttime become more equal. In addition, the closer to the equator the higher the temperatures and the wider range between high and low.

I looked at six cities along the 30° latitude.
The following is a chart with all of the data collected for today, October 15, 2012.

City	Longitude	Sunrise	Sunset	High	Low
Kirkenes, Norway	69° N	7:17am	4:12pm	37°	32°
Kyiv, Ukraine	50° N	7:23am	6:04pm	64°	58°
Mallawi, Egypt	27° N	5:58am	5:27pm	98°	67°
Kigali, Rwanda	1° S	5:41am	5:50pm	82°	61°
Harare, Zimbabwe	18° S	5:26am	5:57pm	83°	63°
Port Shepstone, South Africa	30° S	5:18am	6:09pm	70°	62°

Here are the pictures from Google Earth of each city.

Wind Rose Plots

Wind Rose Plots show the percentage of time wind blows from or to a certain direction and how fast the wind is blowing. I looked at wind rose plots from San Diego, California in March 1991.

The weather station is generally at the San Diego Airport; however, I believe the weather station is actually a little past the airport as seen in the Google Earth image below. The airport is at the red marker and I believe the weather station is at the yellow push pin.

I looked at the wind rose plot for March 11, 1991. One way to read a wind rose plot is to look at the direction the wind is blowing from. The following wind rose plots shows that perspective. The different colors represent the wind speed and the length of the slices represents the amount of times the wind came from that direction within the time period.

Station #23811 San Diego/Lindbergh Field March 11, 1991

Here is the same wind rose plot on Google Earth. It is an interesting perspective. It helps visualize where the wind is coming from in relation to the actual land.

Another way to present a wind rose plot is by showing where the wind is blowing to. The following wind rose plot shows that perspective for the same day.

Station #23811 San Diego/Lindbergh Field March 11, 1991

The following wind rose plot shows the monthly average for March 1991. This shows where the wind is blowing towards.

Station #23811 San Diego/Lindbergh Field March 1991 

The following wind rose plot shows the annual average for 1991. Again, it shows the direction the wind is blowing towards.

Station #23811 San Diego/Lindbergh 1991 

I got the data from the EPA. Click here to see archived data. 

I got the Wind Rose Plot software from Lakes Environmental. You can download it here. 

I also used Google Earth for the image of the San Diego weather station. You can download it here.