함수의 평균값

Before we start answering questions, let's look at our function a little more carefully. The term $50\cos\left(\frac{t}{12}\pi\right)$ has a period of 24 hours, while the term $200\cos\left(\frac{t}{4380}\pi\right)$ has a period of one year. So, the former term describes a standard daily variation, while the latter gives a seasonal variation over the year.

(a) Using the definition of an average, the average concentration over one year ($t=0$ to $8760$) is:

$$\begin{aligned} &\frac{1}{8760}\int_0^{8760}\left(400+ 50\cos\left(\frac{t}{12}\pi\right)+ 200\cos\left(\frac{t}{4380}\pi\right)\right)\,\mathrm{d}t\\ &=\frac{1}{8760}\int_0^{8760}400\,\mathrm{d}t + \frac{50}{8760}\int_0^{8760}\cos\left(\frac{t}{12}\pi\right)\,\mathrm{d}t + \frac{200}{8760}\int_0^{8760}\cos\left(\frac{t}{4380}\pi\right)\,\mathrm{d}t\\ &= 400 + \frac{5}{876}\left[\frac{12}{\pi}\sin\left(\frac{t}{12}\pi\right)\right]_0^{8760}+ \frac{5}{219}\left[\frac{4380}{\pi}\sin\left(\frac{t}{4380}\pi\right)\right]_0^{8760} \\ \text{Since $\frac{8760}{12} = 730$, which is even, $\sin\left(\frac{8760}{12}\pi\right)=\sin(0)=0$. Also, $\sin\left(\frac{8760}{4380}\pi\right)=\sin(2\pi)=0$. } \\ &=400+ \frac{5}{876}(0) + \frac{5}{219}(0)\\ &=400\quad\text{ ppm} \end{aligned}$$

Remark: for the portions of the integral in red and blue, we also could have noticed that the integrand goes through a whole (integer) number of periods. For every period, the net signed area between the curve and the $x$-axis is zero, so we could have seen from the very beginning these terms would contribute 0 to the final average.

(b) Using the definition of an average, the average concentration over the first day ($t=0$ to $t=24$) is:

$$\begin{aligned} &\frac{1}{24}\int_0^{24} \left(400+ 50\cos\left(\frac{t}{12}\pi\right)+ 200\cos\left(\frac{t}{4380}\pi\right)\right)\,\mathrm{d}t\\ &=\frac{1}{24}\int_0^{24}400\,\mathrm{d}t + \frac{50}{24}\int_0^{24}\cos\left(\frac{t}{12}\pi\right)\,\mathrm{d}t+ \frac{200}{24}\int_0^{24}\cos\left(\frac{t}{4380}\pi\right)\,\mathrm{d}t \\ \text{Note $t=0$ to $t=24$ is one complete period for the integrand in red, so the red integral will evaluate to zero. However, $t=0$ to $t=24$ is \textit{less} than one cycle for the integrand in blue, so we expect this will contribute some non-zero quantity to the average.} \\ &=400+ 0 + \frac{200}{24}\left[\frac{4380}{\pi}\sin\left(\frac{t}{4380}\pi\right)\right]_0^{24}\\ &=400+\frac{25}{3}\cdot\frac{4380}{\pi}\sin\left(\frac{24}{4380}\pi\right)\\ &=400+\frac{25}{3}\cdot\frac{4380}{\pi}\sin\left(\frac{2}{365}\pi\right)\\ &\approx 400+199.99\\ &=599.99 \quad\text{ ppm} \end{aligned}$$

Remark: $C(0) = 400+ 50+ 200$. The red term comes from the daily variation, and over the first day this will have an average of 0. The blue term comes from the seasonal variation, which changes dramatically over the course of an entire year but won't change very much over the course of a single day. So, it is reasonable that the average concentration over the first day should be close to (but not exactly) $400+200$ ppm.

(c) The average of $N(t)$ over $[0,8760]$ is:

$$\begin{aligned} \frac{1}{8760}\int_0^{8760} \left ( 350+200\cos\left(\frac{t}{4380}\pi\right)\right)\,\mathrm{d}t&=350 + \frac{200}{8760}\bigg[\frac{4380}{\pi}\sin\left(\frac{t}{4380}\pi\right)\bigg]_0^{8760} \\&=350+\frac{200}{8760}\left[\frac{4380}{\pi}\sin\left(\frac{8760}{4380}\pi\right)\right]\\ &=350+\frac{100}{\pi}\sin\left(2\pi\right)\\&=350 \end{aligned}$$

Since the average of $C(t)$ was 400, this gives us an absolute error of $|400-350|=50$ ppm, for a relative error of $$\frac{50}{400} = 0.125,$$ or 12.5%.

That is: sampling at the same time every day, rather than throughout the day, lead to an error of 12.5% in the yearly average concentration of carbon dioxide.