U.S. Surface Temperature

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Caption: The bars on the graph show the number of degrees by which the average U.S. temperature for each year from 1895 to 2023 differs from the average U.S. temperature during the last century (1901–2000).

This panel, "U.S. Surface Temperature" is an original panel.

Analysis Methods and Tools

This figure panel was created using the following analysis methods:

• The average temperature for the baseline period of 1901–2000 was calculated
• The difference between the annual temperature and the baseline temperature were calculated for each year to produce a time series of temperature “anomalies”. The period of 1901–2000 was chosen because it is easily recognizable and fixed in time. It should be noted that the choice of baseline period will not affect the shape or the statistical significance of the overall trend in anomalies, it only moves the trend up or down on the graph in relation to the point defined as “zero.”

They used Microsoft Excel to analyze the data. The operating system macOS Sonoma , Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise was used to perform the analysis.

The data was visualized using the following methods:

• Values were plotted as bars for each year, colored red for above average temperatures and blue for below average temperatures
• The baseline was labeled as "1901–2000 average" and labels indicating warmer or cooler temperatures were added to the y-axis

and with the following software:

Adobe Illustrator

These methods are not published. For more information please contact the analysis methods authoritative source(s) .

For full details, please download the full metadata record available on the “Full Record” tab.