=+5.43 ● ▼ The article “Characterization of Highway Runoff in Austin, Texas, Area” (Journal of Environmental Engineering [1998]: 131–137) gave a scatterplot, along with the least-squares line for x 5 rainfall volume (in cubic meters) and y 5 runoff volume (in cubic meters), for a particular location. The following data were read from the plot in the paper:

x 5 12 14 17 23 30 40 47 y 4 10 13 15 15 25 27 46 x 55 67 72 81 96 112 127 y 38 46 53 70 82 99 100

a. Does a scatterplot of the data suggest a linear relationship between x and y?