Happy Earth Day!
April 22nd, 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Initially started in the United States in response to things like the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, it has grown to include annual events coordinated in over 193 countries and continues to promote environmental and climate literacy today.
An effective way to communicate complex topics and the staggering amount of published data is to find a clear, approachable way to visualise it. Easier said than done, but a really interesting challenge for all of the data nerds and software developers out there.
Data is cool.
In 2016, British climate scientist Ed Hawkins created a simple, but clear, animated radar chart showing the progression of global warming over time. This is called a climate spiral and it's gotten a lot of public attention. It was featured in the opening ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympics and similar charts have been created for atmospheric CO2, Arctic sea ice volume and extent and to show predicted temperature changes out to 2100 based on different scenarios.
If you like his climate spirals, check out his work on warming stripes.
Fortunately, the concept is simple enough that a layperson, like myself, could replicate it. So I thought it might make for an interesting Delphi programming exercise.
