The issue of climate change has long been debated, and recent political rhetoric has again pushed this topic into the forefront. Adherents of the idea that climate change is caused by human activies believe that the government should hold others accountable in order to contain the progress of climate change. Skeptics of that idea assert that such environmental policies would harm economic growth.
This study seeks to explore the arguments on both sides by visualizing data from multiple angles and uncovering the stories hidden beneath the data.
1. You can drag the time bar at the bottom of the page to the right. The map and the line graph will update based on the time you selected.
2. The map shows the percentage of change in temperature since 1900. The deeper the red (or blue) is, the higher the percentage of increase (or decrease) in temperatures was from 1900 to the year selected.
3. You can click the squares next to the line graph to compare the temperature with the historical trends (1900-2013) of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, the trendline of the sun irradiation index (TSI), population, and the TSI. All values have been rescaled to a range from 0 to 100 for easy comparison. As such, the audience should only pay attention to the overall trend rather than the absolute value.
4. By selecting an option from the drop-down menu, you can observe the relationship between temperature change with other factors (1) before 1980 and (2) for the entire time range. As you will discover, before 1980, the temperature closely tracks the sun irradiation index trend; after 1980, the temperature tracks the growth of population. From the map above, you can see that after 1980s, most countries, especially in the southern hemisphere, have experienced persistent temperature increases.
INSIGHTS:
Since 1900, global temperatures have followed a generally increasing trend, which increased significantly after 1980s, especially in southern hemisphere.
The increase in temperature before the 1980s might result from a simultaneous increase in sun irradiation. However, after 1980s, the temperature continued to rise while sun irradiation remained stable (and even decreased). The increase in temperature during this period of time might largely be due to human activities, as signified by the exponential growth in both the amount of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and population during this time frame.
As such, both natural and human factors might have different degrees of impact on climate change depending on the time of interest. Note that this study presents correlation and does not imply causality. Additionally, reliable data is too limited compared to the history of earth to provide any substantial evidence to support a claim.
DATA SOURCE:
1. Regional Climate Change: Global, Berkeley Earth, http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/global-land
2. CO₂ and other Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), https://ourworldindata.org
3. Total Solar Irradiance Data, Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment at University of Colorado Boulder, http://lasp.colorado.edu
4. Total World Population, https://ourworldindata.org