Climate change is a complex global issue, requiring simple communication about its effects at the local scale. This set of visualisations highlight how we have witnessed temperatures change across the globe over the past century or more. The colour of each stripe represents the temperature of a single year, ordered from the earliest available data at each location to now. All other superfluous information is removed so that the changes in temperature are seen simply and undeniably.

Annual global temperatures from 1850-2017



The colour scale represents the change in global temperatures covering 1.35°C [data]



In the UK, the Central England temperature timeseries stretches back to 1772 with observations every single day. For the wider UK, a set of stripes for different locations is also available, as used by the i newspaper.

Annual temperatures in central England from 1772-2017



The colour scale goes from 7.6°C (dark blue) to 10.8°C (dark red) [data]

Annual temperatures for the contiguous USA from 1895-2017



The colour scale goes from 50.2°F (dark blue) to 55.0°F (dark red) [data]

This stripe concept was adopted by CBC News to communicate climate change in several Canadian cities, including Toronto.

Annual temperatures in Toronto from 1841-2017



The colour scale goes from 5.5°C (dark blue) to 11.0°C (dark red) [data]

Annual temperatures in Germany from 1881-2017



The colour scale goes from 6.6°C (dark blue) to 10.3°C (dark red)

Annual temperatures in Vienna from 1775-2017 (appeared on front page of Weiner Zeitung)



The colour scale goes from 7.5°C (dark blue) to 12.0°C (dark red) [data]

Annual temperatures for Australia (1910-2017)



The colour scale goes from 20.7°C (dark blue) to 23.0°C (dark red) [data]

Annual temperatures for Switzerland (1864-2017)

The colour scale goes from 3.0°C (dark blue) to 6.5°C (dark red) [data]

Annual temperatures for New Zealand (1909-2017)

The colour scale goes from 11.3°C (dark blue) to 13.4°C (dark red) [data]

More locations coming soon…