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NASA Climate Spiral 1880-Present

Released Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Last updated Wednesday, April 15, 2026 at 4:39 PM EDT
Visualizations by: Mark SubbaRao

The visualization presents monthly global temperature anomalies. This visualization is updated roughly two weeks after the end of each month.

Temperature anomalies are deviations from a long term global average. In this case the period 1951-1980 is used to define the baseline for the anomaly. These temperatures are based on the GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP v4), an estimate of global surface temperature change. The data file used to create this visualization is publicly accessible here.

The term 'climate spiral' describes an animated radial plot of global temperatures. Climate scientist Ed Hawkins from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading popularized this style of visualization in 2016.

The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York is a NASA laboratory managed by the Earth Sciences Division of the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The laboratory is affiliated with Columbia University’s Earth Institute and School of Engineering and Applied Science in New York.

Link to NASA page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5190/

Artemis II Wisdom

I was quite moved by NASA's recent Artemis II mission. Here are some great quotes from the crew of the lunar fly-by:

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover show a photo of Earth taken just moments
after the Orion spacecraft ignited its thrusters for a final burn for 8 seconds, producing a change
in velocity of 4.2 feet-per-second and pushing Artemis II toward Earth. | Photo: NASA

"Houston, if you could give me about 20 new superlatives in the mission summary for tomorrow that will help out my vocabulary a little bit, that would be great. Thank you."

“If you’ve ever seen the top of the spotlight of the top of the Luxor at night in Vegas, this looks like what it wants to be when it grows up.”

"To all of you on Earth, and around the Earth ... we love you, from the moon."

"You can see the surface of the Moon ... we just went sci fi."

"It is so great to see Earth again. To Asia, Africa, and Oceania: we are looking back at you. We hear you can look up and see the moon right now. We see you too."

"We will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other."

“It’s a bright spot on the moon, and we would like to call it Carroll.”

"I said that we do not leave Earth, but we choose it. And that is true."

"Christina has been sleeping head down in the middle of the vehicle, kind of like a bat"

"It's really fun to be floatin' around, it just makes me feel like a little kid."

"Trust us, you look amazing, you look beautiful."

"'Homo Sapiens' is all of us, no matter where you're from or what you look like. We're all one people."

"I'm proud to call myself the Space Plumber."

"I know I haven’t learned everything that this journey has yet to teach me but there’s one new thing I know, and that is planet Earth: You are a crew."

https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/

The True Size

UK climate data scientist Neil Kaye has animated a map of the world that shows the distorted sizes of countries due to the Mercator Projection, and then their true sizes. For example: in reality, Greenland is not larger than Africa...

https://twitter.com/neilrkaye/status/1464874387698552832

The Average Colors of the World

Erin Davis creates data visualizations to, as she puts it, "express my weird arty side and cold analytical side in one nice package." And this is a fascinating visualization: she used satellite imagery from the Sentinel-2 satellite to average out the colors it sees in various countries and continents around the world. It sure is easy to see where the dry regions are...

https://erdavis.com/2021/06/26/average-colors-of-the-world/

Waterside Buddhist Shrine

Your moment of Zen: Beijing-based practice Archstudio designed the minimalist "Waterside Buddhist Shrine" in the northern Chinese province of Hebei as an immersive experience close to nature. The entire interior is located under a hillside next to a river and is formed from cast-in-place concrete using one inch pine strips to give the walls a beautiful, organic texture. The Buddhist altar is situated under a canted skylight and the curved back wall channels light down into the area. The tea-drinking area in front of the Buddhist altar faces the river and features a low table with floor cushions and carved modern back rests.

http://www.archstudio.cn/works/detail/1270998765691473920

A Series Of Interconnected Disasters

Yes.

Burning

We're on fire.
Climate Catastrophe is real.
Science is real.
Climate is different from weather.
This is not a "process" that is natural. It has not happened before.We are seeing Climate Catastrophe happen right before us. Everything that was predicted 20 years ago is happening now. Just as climatologists thought it would.

I was evacuated from my home, not knowing if it would survive or burn.
I have seen raining ash.
I have seen a dim sun in an orange sky.
I have struggled to breathe in air thick with smoke.
It is real.

Earth, Water, Fire, Air

These are the classical symbols of the four elements.

earth

water

fire

air

Universal Perspective

And now, for some universal perspective...

BEAUTY: Photography--Hayden Williams

American photographer Hayden Williams addresses our Climate Catastrophe--and the immense frustration with the lack of acknowledgement of environmental problems, something very apparent in the US under a president who is a notorious climate change sceptic--in his series World Underwater.

In an interview with It's Nice That, Hayden said, "The spark that ignited this series was a trip to Venice. While travelling there I learned how the city is frequently flooded. It surprised me learning how Venice prepares, defends, and inevitably repairs itself from unforgiving tides. I began to imagine, 'what if the rest of the world lived like this?'

I usually have a very clear image in mind when I imagine a photograph I want to take or a scene I want to render. I imagined the two 'Pipe Dream' images of flooded subway trains when I was daydreaming about my move to New York for an internship. The subway is something many people are familiar with, so I thought it would be the perfect subject to flood.

Climate change is an obvious problem, and I find it absolutely ridiculous how many continue to deny its existence. We should be talking about how to solve it, but instead we somehow have to convince half of the world that there is something that needs to be solved in the first place."

I agree. Leaders and governments and businesses wasted nearly 30 years denying that our house is really on fire. It started in the basement, it is almost done consuming the ground floor (the images of the devastation in Australia and NSW have broken my heart), and it is about to start burning on the top floor. That is 30 years where solutions could have been proposed and implemented. How much farther along would we be right now if we had had that time? But no, financial greed and conservative/religious ignorance allowed the fire to grow. There's not much to mitigate anymore. The damage has been done and we are looking at a very grim future.

https://www.haydenclay.com/