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A Statistical Examination of the Climatic Human Expert System, The Sunset Garden Zones for California

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dc.contributor.authorLogan, Benen
dc.contributor.committeechairCampbell, James B. Jr.en
dc.contributor.committeememberBoyer, John D.en
dc.contributor.committeememberKennedy, Lisa M.en
dc.contributor.committeememberBuikema, Arthur L. Jr.en
dc.contributor.departmentGeographyen
dc.date.accessioned2014-03-14T20:35:39Zen
dc.date.adate2008-01-11en
dc.date.available2014-03-14T20:35:39Zen
dc.date.issued2006-04-25en
dc.date.rdate2008-01-11en
dc.date.sdate2006-05-08en
dc.description.abstractTwentieth Century climatology was dominated by two great figures: Wladamir Köppen and C. Warren Thornthwaite. The first carefully developed climatic parameters to match the larger world vegetation communities. The second developed complex formulas of "Moisture Factors" that provided efficient understanding of how evapotranspiration influences plant growth and health, both for native and non-native communities. In the latter half of the Twentieth Century, the Sunset Magazine Corporation develop a purely empirical set of Garden Zones, first for California, then for the thirteen states of the West, now for the entire nation in the National Garden Maps. The Sunset Garden Zones are well recognized and respected in Western States for illustrating the several factors of climate that distinguish zones. But the Sunset Garden Zones have never before been digitized and examined statistically for validation of their demarcations. This thesis examines the digitized zones with reference to PRISM climate data. Variable coverages resembling those described by Sunset are extracted from the PRISM data. These variable coverages are collected for two buffered areas, one in northern California and one in southern California. The coverages are exported from ArcGIS 9.1 to SAS® where they are processed first through a Principal Component Analysis, and then the first five principal components are entered into a Ward's Hierarchical Cluster Analysis. The resulting clusters were translated back into ArcGIS as a raster coverage, where the clusters were climatic regions. This process is quite amenable for further examination of other regions of Californiaen
dc.description.degreeMaster of Scienceen
dc.identifier.otheretd-05082006-113632en
dc.identifier.sourceurlhttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-05082006-113632/en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/32371en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.relation.haspartblogan_thesis_6-29-07_Acrobat5.pdfen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectSunset Garden Zonesen
dc.subjectClimateen
dc.subjectPrincipal Component Analysisen
dc.subjectCaliforniaen
dc.subjectCluster Analysisen
dc.titleA Statistical Examination of the Climatic Human Expert System, The Sunset Garden Zones for Californiaen
dc.typeThesisen
thesis.degree.disciplineGeographyen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.levelmastersen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Scienceen

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