Climate spiral

An early Ed Hawkins climate spiral portrays global warming,[Note 1] the spiral's growing radius indicating how temperature has increased since 1850.[1]
Final frame of a climate spiral[2][Note 1]

A climate spiral (sometimes referred to as a temperature spiral[3][4]) is an animated data visualization graphic designed as a "simple and effective demonstration of the progression of global warming", especially for general audiences.[5]

The original climate spiral was published on 9 May 2016 by British climate scientist Ed Hawkins to portray global average temperature anomaly (change) since 1850.[6] The visualization graphic has since been expanded to represent other time-varying quantities such as atmospheric CO2 concentration,[3] carbon budget,[3] and arctic sea ice volume.[7][8]


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  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference WashPost_20160511 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference ClimateSpiralGraphic was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference OpenClimateData_SpiralList was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Grist_20160531 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference WashPost_20160728 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference UofReadingWeblogs_201605 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference ClimateLabBook_20170509 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference NatGeo_20170108 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).