we tell you the story of the “Warming Stripes”, the best graph to understand global warming

We saw them at the Elysée duringa government seminar and to a post-hardcore rock concert. Has fashion shows and in the latest report from the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. On the face of the new chilean presidentGabriel Boric, and on cans of beer. Around the neck of a big finance boss and on the climate march placards. On a soccer jersey and on the cover of activist Greta Thunberg’s latest book.

We could continue this list for a long time: the “Warming Stripes”or “global warming bands” in French, have spread everywhere since their creation in 2018 by British climatologist Ed Hawkins, 45. “I never imagined I would ever go to London Fashion Week or take part in a shoot for a football shirt. It’s not on the list of normal activities for a climatologist”, he euphemizes. On the occasion of COP27, which is being held from November 6 to 18 in Sharm El-Sheikh (Egypt), franceinfo tells you the story of these wildly successful bands.

At the beginning are a baby and a crochet “addict”. Ellie Highwood, a fellow Ed Hawkins scientist, prepares a blanket as a baby shower gift for a colleague’s daughter. She decides to draw inspiration from a very common practice among “crocheters”: making one row per day and using the temperature or the color of the sky at the time to choose the color. “I was wondering what the global temperature series would look like on a blanket. And since global warming is often explained by comparing greenhouse gases to a blanket, I found it interesting to make the connection”, she explained at the time on her blog. A few months earlier, another scientist, the American Joan Sheldon, had had a similar idea.

Ok so i am a crochet addict. This is my “global warming blanket” -stripes colored according to last 100 years T anomaly… pic.twitter.com/dm9P7cLvzd

— Ellie Highwood (She/Hers) (@EllieHighwood) June 10, 2017

This is where Ed Hawkins comes in. The scientist from the University of Reading (United Kingdom), co-author of the last two IPCC reports, has long been interested in the best way to represent global warming. “I created visualizations that I thought were brilliant, but no one liked”, he jokes. A year after seeing his colleague’s cover, he resumed the principle by simplifying the color code. In blue, the years colder than the average temperature between 1971 and 2000. In red, the warmer years. The result clearly shows the warming observed in recent years as a result of human activities (consumption of oil, coal and gas, deforestation). The success is immediate: in one week, the Warming Stripes are downloaded a million times on the site set up for the occasion.

How to explain such a success? Ed Hawkins attributes it to the beauty of these strips and their simplicity (they are stripped of axes and numbers), which make them understandable “for people who didn’t like math or science at school”. Scientist Mélissa Gomis, who worked on the graphics for the latest IPCC report as a member of the technical group, hails a very successful visual communication exercise. “They contain scientific data, but it’s almost more of a work of art. The goal is not to communicate the concept of temperature anomaly used here, it is to give the feeling of climate change”details this specialist in graphic visualizations.

“It’s universal: the graph can be understood by a Nobel Prize in physics as well as by people far removed from science.”

Mélissa Gomis, specialist in scientific visualizations

at franceinfo

Simple to understand, the strips are also easily available, at all scales (world, country, city) and on any type of medium. Ed Hawkins even came up with a version where different climate futures are emerging based on our choices and decisions. Her colleague Valérie Masson-Delmotte does not only use them in her presentations to the government or in schools. She often wears them as a scarf, a gift from Hawkins at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021. “When I take the RER, people call out to me about this scarf, say to me ‘hey, it’s the climate barcode’, without knowing me”testifies the co-president of group 1 of the IPCC. “It’s quite rare for a scientific object to enter popular culture.”

It is enough to push the doors of the stadium of Reading FC, the professional football team of the city where Ed Hawkins works, to be convinced of this reality. The bands of the evolution of the local temperature are declined on the sleeves of the jerseys for the 2022-2023 season of this club playing in the English second division. The idea germinated during a videoconference with the university. “I saw the stripes behind him. I thought it was a painting, but he explained to me what they represented”recalls Tim Kilpatrick, Commercial Director of Reading FC.

It is he who proposes to display them on the shirt. “With the university, we wanted this message to reach a new audience, in this case our supporters”, continues the commercial director. This choice is the most visible part of a series of decisions to reduce the club’s environmental footprint: photovoltaic panels, “climate” score for the different menus served at the stadium, recycled polyester jerseys…

Fashion designer Lucy Tammam discovered the Warming Stripes thanks to a friend. The 39-year-old entrepreneur, who claims a “sustainable” and ecological approach, immediately wanted to make dresses. “My first goal is to make beautiful, eco-friendly clothes. I also really like the idea of ​​using fashion as a pathway to activism and education”, she confides by e-mail. The bands are now available on dresses, scarves, scarves and coats. “Most of the reactions are positive, with people delighted to have discovered ‘Stripes’ in this way”says the designer.

Positive reactions, what next? The concrete benefits of Warming Stripes remain difficult to assess. “Millions of people have seen them and used them. Whether it has caused any change is very hard to say,” summarizes Ed Hawkins. Rather, he sees his graph as a new instrument in “the toolbox” to communicate and “start a conversation” on global warming. The British scientist tells how an American, who had covered his electric car with the bandswas able to trigger debates on the subject at motor shows. “I think it’s much more effective than receiving a lesson on the subject. People are intrigued and ask questions”assures the climatologist.

“It’s a way to talk about the climate in different social circles. That’s generally what the climate community needs to do: inspire that conversation in other circles.”

Ed Hawkins, climatologist

at franceinfo

To promote wide dissemination, the warming tapes are licensed free. “People can use it and we can’t say no”, summarizes Ed Hawkins. Assure him that he has no negative examples in mind, but the risk of greenwashing, that is to say their use by actors who are not very respectful of the environment to green their image, is there. For example, we can note that the Reading football club has not given up on renewing its range of shirts each season, a practice that encourages its supporters to consume. Larry Fink, the all-powerful boss of the BlackRock asset management group, who wore a scarf in the colors of Warming Stripes in 2020, announced in May the end of its short-lived support for pro-climate shareholders, as told The world.

Despite this blind spot, the approach has given biodiversity advocates ideas. Miles Richardson, professor of psychology at the University of Derby (United Kingdom), developed this summer “Biodiversity Stripes” to account for the collapse of populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles. “They range from the green of nature to gray, to represent the loss of color as species disappear. The world becomes grayer, more urban”, details the person concerned. The data come from the Living Planet Index of the NGO WWF.

Inspired by @ed_hawkins climate stripes I’ve made some biodiversity stripes using @LPI_Science data to show how the average drop of 68% in the population of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians & reptiles since 1970 is a journey from green to grey: https://t.co/JklYjlUQCo pic.twitter.com/dPmeyN7Qjn

— Miles Richardson (@findingnature) August 10, 2022

The scientist embarked on this visualization because he regrets that biodiversity is “the poor relation of global warming, which is treated much more in the media”. Miles Richardson hopes his graphic will enjoy the same success as the Warming Stripes from Ed Hawkins: “Both are environmental crises that ultimately threaten human existence.”