Introduction

Recently, I have started to examine the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC (1.5ºF). The report outlines the impacts of global warming if greenhouse gas emissions continue to warm up the atmosphere by 1.5ºC pre-industrial levels (Global Warming of 1.5 oC —, n.d.). While we increasingly witness more of the effects of climate change—coastal erosion, coral bleaching, droughts, landslides, and famine to name a few—what the IPCC report did was highlight the costs and ways in which nations can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Though the world will not end by 2030, if efforts are not made to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions by then, we will enter into a period where the “most severe effects of climate change” will be the norm (Davenport, 2018).

Like many others, this bothers me because I believe that all life on our planet is interconnected and should be cherished. Yet, also like many others, without an actual understanding of what environmental changes brought us to this point, it is difficult to comprehend the significance of things like reports from the IPCC, the Paris Agreement, and the United States’ notice of withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in November 2019. Thankfully, data visualization provides us with a great means of embodying information while looking for insights.

Methodology

The visualizations on this page reference the work of two institutions (Berkeley Earth and The Earth System Research Laboratory Global Monitoring Division at The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)) that have been monitoring climate change with regards to temperature anomalies and greenhouse gas emissions.

Every year NOAA releases an updated report on the Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI), a “ratio of the total direct radiative forcing due to long-lived greenhouse gases for any year for which adequate global measurements exist to that which was present in 1990” (US Department of Commerce, n.d.). In 2018, the AGGI was reported at 1.43, which illustrates a 43% increase in total direct radiative forcing since 1990 (US Department of Commerce, n.d.).

Similarly, the independent non-profit Berkeley Earth has also worked to produce an Earth Surface Temperature Study, which combines the reports from sixteen different data archives to create an expansive data set (“About the Data Set,” n.d.). This work is interesting because of its broad scope, and “mathematical modeling, which enabled the inclusion of short and discontinuous temperature records that had often been excluded from other studies” (“Methodology,” n.d.).

With the temperature anomaly data collected from Berkeley Earth, I wanted to see overall warming trends, both annually and monthly, and look at the trends for the past fifty years. Using the greenhouse gas emission dataset from NOAA, I wanted examine the change in quantity of these gases since 1970. From both datasets, I selected to examine the period from 1970, as it was a year which marked the enactment of the US National Environmental Policy Act, and globally, the first Earth Day (22 April 1970). Both datasets were originally obtained as text files, which were then edited in Microsoft Excel to remove “read-me” text and null columns. Further editing in Tableau Desktop, was used to hide columns and pivot the Berkeley Earth dataset.

Overview of the Data

Temperature Anomalies from Berkeley Earth:

• 12 Variables (Year, Month, and Anomalies and Uncertainties for Monthly, Annual, Five-, Ten-, and Twenty-Years)

• 1,000 Observations

NOAA AGGI Dataset:

• 11 Variables (Year, Carbon Dioxide, Methane, Nitrous Oxide, CFC-12, CFC-11, 15-Minor, Total, Change Since 1990, and Percent Change)

• 40 Observations

Observations

The most shocking finding for me is the doubling of carbon dioxide emissions from 1979 to 2018 (1.027 to 2.044 ppm). While the trends in sea-air anomalies do indicate an in increase warming from 1850 to now, the period of 1970 (0.44 annual anomaly) to 2019 (9.82 annual anomaly) shows a steep incline. Further study with more variables, such as population, and statistical modeling is needed to determine if a correlation is present.

References

About the Data Set. (n.d.). Berkeley Earth. Retrieved February 20, 2020, from http://berkeleyearth.org/about-data-set/

Davenport, C. (2018, October 7). Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate-report-2040.html

Global Warming of 1.5 oC —. (n.d.). Retrieved October 11, 2019, from https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/

Methodology. (n.d.). Berkeley Earth. Retrieved February 20, 2020, from http://berkeleyearth.org/methodology/

US Department of Commerce, N. (n.d.). NOAA/ESRL Global Monitoring Division—THE NOAA ANNUAL GREENHOUSE GAS INDEX (AGGI). Retrieved February 13, 2020, from https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.html