Warming Stripes
2025 It's Not Easy Being Green
Prof. Ed Hawkins, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading
Prof. Ed Hawkins, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading
Warming Stripes
2025 It's Not Easy Being Green
Prof. Ed Hawkins, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading
Medium:
Data visualisation graphic
Displayed:
Across the UK and Brazil 7 Oct - 10 Nov
Artwork Description:
No words. Just a series of vertical-coloured bars, showing the progressive heating of our planet in a single, striking image. Each stripe represents the average temperature for a single year, relative to the average temperature for the period from 1961 to 2010. Shades of blue indicate cooler-than-average years, while red shows years that were hotter than average. The stark band of deep red stripes on the right-hand side of the graphic shows the rapid heating of our planet in recent decades.   Â
These climate stripes were created by Professor Ed Hawkins, at the University of Reading in 2018. They show clearly and vividly how global average temperatures have risen over nearly two centuries. Â
Artist's Comment:
The Warming Stripes are designed to start conversations about why our climate is changing, how we are already experiencing the consequences of a warmer world and, importantly, what we can all do about it. Difficult choices about how to reduce our carbon emissions are made easier when we all understand the risks of doing nothing.
Bio:
Ed Hawkins (b.1977, UK) is an innovative climate scientist with diverse research interests in understanding historical climate variations, future climate projections and how they can inform decisions today on adapting to and mitigating climate risk. He has a notable focus on communication and data visualisation to inform public conversations on climate change risks and solutions, and is an advocate for involvement of citizen science in developing scientific knowledge. Â
He is part of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading and was a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th Assessment Report. His research examines how and why the climate has changed since the industrial revolution, and how it may change over the coming decades, particularly the interplay between natural climate variations and human-caused trends. He also leads Weather Rescue – a series of citizen science projects involving thousands of volunteers – which are recovering millions of lost Victorian-era weather observations from hand-written archives and turning them into invaluable digital data. Ed also actively engages with a variety of audiences about climate change, especially using novel graphical visualisations such as the Climate Spiral and Warming Stripes.
Curator's Comment:
I absolutely love this ingenious visualisation from Climate Scientist Professor Ed Hawkins which so clearly illustrates that Global Warming is real. Although the work is called Warming Stripes, I cannot see it without misreading the title as warning stripes, which, of course, they are – or should be.
About
Prof. Ed Hawkins, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading
