2. The table below lists elevation above sea level (in
ft.) and
mean annual temperature (in °F) for several locations
at
approximately the same latitude along a line from central
Tennessee eastward across the Appalachian Mountains to
central North Carolina. On a sheet of graph paper, plot
mean annual temperature versus elevation for these
stations.
Your points will not lie precisely on a straight line.
However, because air temperature generally decreases with
elevation in the troposphere, the points should tend to
orient themselves in a linear fashion. Draw a straight
line
of best fit to your plotted data, and compute the slope of
your line, thereby providing a numerical estimate of the
effect of elevation on average temperatures. How close is
your estimate to the average environmental lapse rate?
(Hint: to draw a straight line of best fit through a set
of
points, think of the points as exhibits scattered in a
large
room of a museum. You want to get as close as possible to
all the exhibits, but you are constrained to walk through
the museum in a straight line. The most efficient path for
you to accomplish your goal would be a good estimate of a
straight line of best fit through the points.)