Normal Distribution for Global Warming Data

I have global warming data over decades that I want to plot to visually assess if the data is normally distributed. What is the easiest way to do this?

I copied the data from an excel sheet to a matrix in MATLAB.

[John D'Errico]

The funny thing is, noisy data, even with a trend in it, can still appear to be normally distributed. And visual assessments can easily be distorted by personal biases, to appear as one wishes.

I would strongly recommend using a statistical assessment. Determine if a trend exists, and if the trend is statistically significant.

Answer 1

[Jemima Pulipati]

Hello,

From my understanding you want to check if the global warming data is normally distributed or not.

The chi2gof(x) returns a test decision for the null hypothesis that the data in vector x comes from a normal distribution with a mean and variance estimated from x, using the chi-square goodness-of-fit test. The alternative hypothesis is that the data does not come from such a distribution. The result is 1 if the test rejects the null hypothesis at the 5% significance level, and 0 otherwise.

Some of the answers from the community which might be of relevance to you:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/45477-how-to-check-if-data-is-normally-distributed

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/25129-normal-distribution-test