Exploring Relationships between Climate Variables and Flowering Using Graphics
Visualizing the flowering data and checking for errors:
In order to understand the nature of the data, I first plotted the original data (prior to any modifications and aggregation procedures) using line plots. Below you can see the flowering data for each site for the two regions, Malaysia and Borneo (Graphs 1,2). (Philippines data is not shown as it only contains 4 years of flowering records for one site.) I aggregated flowering data for each region for the sites that showed similarity of flowering peaks. Sites 6,7,8, and 10 (refer to Graphs 1 and 2 and Figure 1) were excluded from the analysis. The flowering data was checked for errors.
In order to understand the nature of the data, I first plotted the original data (prior to any modifications and aggregation procedures) using line plots. Below you can see the flowering data for each site for the two regions, Malaysia and Borneo (Graphs 1,2). (Philippines data is not shown as it only contains 4 years of flowering records for one site.) I aggregated flowering data for each region for the sites that showed similarity of flowering peaks. Sites 6,7,8, and 10 (refer to Graphs 1 and 2 and Figure 1) were excluded from the analysis. The flowering data was checked for errors.
Graph 1: Flowering data for sites: Malaysia
Graph 2: Flowering data for sites: Borneo
Relationships between flowering and climate variables:
To visualize my data, I plotted yearly variables, SOI and averaged flowering intensities for the three regions: Borneo, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Graphs 3,4, and 5 show yearly climate and flowering data for the three regions. There is significant yearly variation in precipitation, humidity, cloud cover, and SOI. The temperatures do not fluctuate much from year to year. This suggests that perhaps precipitation, humidity, cloud cover and SOI will be stronger indicators of flowering. The vertical dotted lines show the years of GF events. Particularly in Borneo, a lot of the GF events fall on low SOI and precipitation values. In Malaysia, the peaks seem to correlate with low precipitation and low cloud cover values. It is hard to draw conclusions for the Philippines from this graph as there are only f observations.
To visualize my data, I plotted yearly variables, SOI and averaged flowering intensities for the three regions: Borneo, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Graphs 3,4, and 5 show yearly climate and flowering data for the three regions. There is significant yearly variation in precipitation, humidity, cloud cover, and SOI. The temperatures do not fluctuate much from year to year. This suggests that perhaps precipitation, humidity, cloud cover and SOI will be stronger indicators of flowering. The vertical dotted lines show the years of GF events. Particularly in Borneo, a lot of the GF events fall on low SOI and precipitation values. In Malaysia, the peaks seem to correlate with low precipitation and low cloud cover values. It is hard to draw conclusions for the Philippines from this graph as there are only f observations.
Graph 3: Climate data and flowering intensity, Borneo
Graph 3 shows climate and GF years for Borneo. The vertical dotted lines show mass flowering events a) Flowering intensity during GF years in Borneo over the period from 1950 to 2002. b) Maximum and Minimum temperature trends (red - Tmax, blue - Tmin) and vapor pressure (black - Hum) are plotted over the same period from 1950-2002. c) Precipitation (purple) and cloud cover (green) trend for 1950-2002. d) SOI with a horizontal line showing the value of zero.
Graph 4: Climate data and flowering intensity, Malaysia
Graph 4 shows climate and GF years for Malaysia. The vertical dotted lines show mass flowering years. a) Flowering intensity during GF years in Malaysia over the period from 1950 to 2002. b) Maximum and Minimum temperature trends (red - Tmax, blue - Tmin) and vapor pressure (black - Hum) are plotted over the same period from 1950-2002. c) Precipitation (purple) and cloud cover (green) trend for 1950-2002. d) SOI with a horizontal line showing the value of zero.
Graph 5: Climate data and flowering intensity, the Philippines
Graph 5 shows climate and GF years for the Philippines. The vertical dotted line shows mass flowering year. a) Flowering intensity during GF years in Malaysia over the period from 1950 to 2002. b) Maximum and Minimum temperature trends (red - Tmax, blue - Tmin) and vapor pressure (black - Hum) are plotted over the same period from 1950-2002. c) Precipitation (purple) and cloud cover (green) trend for 1950-2002. d) SOI with a horizontal line showing the value of zero.
