A visual map of the arguments for and against human-caused global climate change.
I’m fascinated by climate deniers. How could anyone deny the climate change is happening?
What evidence is there? Surely it’s unambiguous?
Curious, I investigated the key statements made by climate denialists and sought out the counter-views, as presented by climate research scientists. The result is this image.
(This a new and updated version of the spread on Climate Skepticism from my book The Visual Miscellaneum)
I researched this subject in a very particular way. I deliberately chose not speak directly to any climate experts or leading scientists in the field. I used only publicly available web sources.
Why? Because I wanted to simulate what it’s like for people trying to learn about climate change online.
My conclusion is “what a nightmare”. I was generally shocked and appalled by how difficult it was to source counter arguments. The data was often tucked away on extremely ancient or byzantine websites. The key counter arguments I often found, 16 scrolls down, on comment 342 on a far flung realclimate.org post from three years ago. And even when I found an answer, the answers were excessively jargonized or technical.
Most of the info for this image is sourced from Realclimate.org. It’s an amazing blog staffed tirelessly by some of the world’s leading climatologists.
Unfortunately, the majority of the writing on there is so scientific and so technical, it makes the website nigh on useless to the casual, curious reader.
This has got to be one of the reasons why scientists and leaders are struggling to convince sections of the populace that the threat of climate change is real. Because they’re doing such a terrible job explaining it.
(Saying all that, I would like to express my gratitude to Gavin A Schmidt, one of unsung heroes of the web IMHO. His sterling and patient replies to comments, on RealClimate.org in understandable English, have really helped this process.)
This image was a mammoth undertaking, especially for someone like me, unschooled in climate science. So I appreciate your understanding if any errors have crept into the process. If you spot any, please get in touch and I’ll will correct them on the double.
In every case, wherever possible, I went back the original data. (I’ve included a ZIP of all the data I’ve collected plus a spreadsheet of all the sources). And all the graphs in the image are generated from the original temperature records and other data sources. Feel free to rifle through and check everything.
RealClimate.org are (now) keeping an archive of all the data – if you want even more!
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
UPDATE 1 (12th Dec 09): There have been a few complaints about the legibility of the image. So I’ve created a version on white instead of black.
Consensus sources: Realclimate.org, NOAA Satellite and Information Service, Nature.com, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre
Explore the sources In this Google doc
Here’s all the climate change data I used to create the graphs
The Change In Carbon Emissions
Another beautiful viz from Good Magazine. This time by Spanish viz supremo Lamosca. Twinned with Kyoto Targets.
Your pet’s CO2 pawprint
How much CO2 is that doggy in the window? [Via Good Magazine and NewScientist]
White fight or flight?
Here’s a little something I did, overlaying membership data from the racist British National Party and ethnic populations in the UK. See the full size image.
300 days of Swine Flu
Nice image from Michael Paulkner showing the death toll from Swine Flu after 300 days. Larger sizes here.
Blimey. Quite a lot of doom and gloom in those images. I’ll try to make the next one cheerier.
If you’re still hungry for more infographical morsels, check out the last selection.
In the meantime, if you come across any visual delights, please send them through.
There’s a lot of talk of a new world climate agreement in Copenhagen in December to succeed Kyoto. I wondered how the signatories of the first one were doing. Make up your own mind.
As ever, this was difficult to research. A lot of the important data was locked in a huge European Environment Agency report. And then summarised by a byzantine graph. In the end I had to trawl through individual country reports to get the figures I needed.
It was also tricky to visualise. I chose quite a designery approach which demands that you dig into the image a bit to get the understanding flowing. I hope the result isn’t too byzantine either.
The design took several versions to get right. If you’re interested, you can see some drafts here (or as a PDF).
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When Sea Levels Attack
It’s difficult to keep track of all this shifting information on sea level rises.
It doesn’t help that in climate change reporting, a consistent but bewildering assumption is repeatedly made: that we understand what a 1 metre sea level rise actually means.
A “1 metre sea level rise” is in the same domain as “1 ton of carbon” or “£1 billion”. That is, it’s meaningless without context or some link to our everyday lives.
So, in this latest diagram for The Guardian Datablog, I’ve tried to sum up all the current research on sea level rises. What will happen, when it will happen, and where all that sea water will come from. And to suggest what cities will flood When Sea Levels Attack!
source: Sea Level Rise Explorer, Global Sea Level Linked To Rising Temperature (Vermeer, Rahmstorf 2009, PDF), New Scientist, Future Sea Level Rise (Rahmstorf 2007, PDF), IPCC, Telegraph.co.uk
data: in this Google spreadsheet
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