The North Atlantic hurricane database, or HURDAT, is a database of all tropical storms and hurricanes for the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea, reporting numbers of storms each year since 1850. The older portion of the database ref lects recent efforts to discover undocumented historical hurricanes in the late 19th and 20th centuries, which have greatly increased our knowledge of these past events. Recent catastrophic hurricanes such as Katrina, Harvey, and Irma have raised concerns that the number or intensity of Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes has been increasing, possibly due to global climate change. Insurance companies are, of course, interested in this question. (Data in Hurricane history) Here is a histogram of the data on tropical storms:

a) Describe the distribution. Here is a time series plot of these data with a smooth trace added:

b) Discuss the time series plot. Does it support the claim of increasing numbers of tropical storms?

c) What can you see from the time series plot that you couldn?t see in the histogram?

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30.0 22.5 15.0 7.5 0.0 1880 1920 1960 2000 Year # of Tropic al Storms