Sneha Krishnan
If there is one imminent threat for mankind that worries me, then that would be Global Warming. For years now, we have seen scientists talk about its perils and consequences for our planet and in particular about the jeopardy to life on Earth. There is proof enough to believe that our actions are leading to the rising Global temperature. I often find it to be a huge irony, that we complain about the rising temperatures, drought and hot summers while relaxing in air conditioned houses or often driving comfortable air conditioned cars and listening to the news on the radio. In reality though, it is our actions that are causing the gradual Global temperature rise, thanks to increased CO2Â emission levels due fossil fuel burning.
I stumbled upon this Washington Post article and I was instantly attracted by its title. Though a little old, I read this article to understand the findings shared by the World Meteorological Association. The graph in the link describes the Global temperature in degree Celsius for decades (a period of 10 years) from 1881 to 2010. As explained in the article, they have considered decades as the time to measure the Global temperature rather than individual years, as temperatures in a single year could also rise due to reasons other than climate change.
What I liked about the graph is that they have considered the time span of nearly 15 decades to show the changing Global temperature. This gives us an idea about Global temperature not just in the past few decades, but rather its progressive increase over several decades. The fact that they have measured temperatures over decades rather than individual years is also very helpful, as climate changes and Global temperature rises are evident over a longer period than over short intervals. Had this been for individual years, the difference in temperature between successive years would not be quite evident, which would have led us to believe that the temperature rise is not significant and we have anything to worry about. The color coding for each five decades also helps us understand the relative changes in temperature in a span of five decades. It helps us notice the steep increase in temperature from one color to the other, signifying a rapid increase in temperatures between those decades. The graph is simple and informative, it helps convey the relevant information to a novice reader who needs to know the impending dangers of global warming and be a responsible citizen. The hope is that they would consider carpooling the next time he takes their car to work or decide to bike to get groceries from the nearby grocery store.
While I liked the graph for depicting the increasing temperatures over nearly the last 15 decades, I found certain aspects to be confusing and not adding value to the graph. For instance, I did not understand why did the Y-axis start from 13.400 degree Celsius. It is not clear to me as a novice reader, whether it indicates the temperature before the starting decade of 1881 (i.e. 1871 to 1880) or is it considered the normal Global temperature. Also, the purpose for the center dashed line that goes through the graph (a little above the temperature on Y-axis of 13.950) is not clear. I am not sure if it is present in order to indicate something significant like the mean temperature (though the mean temperature is 13.95) in the graph or some other significant aspect. There is also inconsistency in using numbers in the graph, where the temperatures indicated on Y- axis have 3 digits post decimal and the temperatures on top of the bars have just 2 digits after the decimal point.
A significant drawback according to me, is that the graph does not convey a lot of information to support the claim made by the title. There is not enough information to explain the relationship between rising in Global temperature and factors contributing to Global Warming. If it had more information on the factors contributing to global warming (like CO2 emission levels) for decades in the graph showing significant increase in these factors as well, then the graph would support the claim of the article better. I also feel the horizontal dashed lines running to mark individual temperatures on the Y-axis do not add much value, as the temperature for each decade is mentioned on top of the bars.
In my opinion, the graph could be more useful and serve the claim better if certain things were done differently. The graph does not convey much information, especially regarding the correlation between rising temperatures and the factors contributing to it. Also, a layman may not know whether how much of an increase in the Global temperature is too much to damage the planet. The total temperature difference (between the starting and ending decade in the graph) is less than 1 degree Celsius, and this may seem not too significant, if not explained about the consequences with that increase. I would have included all the above information in the visualization. I would have used better visualization techniques and added a second graph to show the correlation between increasing Global temperature and factors contributing to rising temperatures. I would have also explained the scientific relation between those factors and the global temperature, so as to not leave room for doubt in the reader’s mind.