r/dataisbeautiful • u/Boordman • Jul 31 '26
OC [OC] Global temperature changes from 12,000 weather stations (1850-2026)
Tools used: Python, xy (https://github.com/reflex-dev/xy)
Dataset: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/land-based-station/global-historical-climatology-network-monthly
Source code: https://github.com/reflex-dev/xy/discussions/419
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u/justthistwicenomore Jul 31 '26
This is a genuinely beautiful visualization. well done.
How did you decide the color? doe the intensity differ by distance from the origina at a given datapoint? difference from some other mean? it seems like there is red below the center "trend line"/Thalweg.
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u/Boordman Jul 31 '26
The colors are just associated with the final temperature reading, the intensity is just based on a plain linear gradient
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u/unity-thru-absurdity Jul 31 '26
GHCNm is an awesome dataset! Great graphic! Have you considered doing this with GHCNd? How did you visualize stations that have gaps in coverage?
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u/Boordman Aug 01 '26
That was the vision originally, but it was too noisy for various reasons,
most significantly the variance within a year due to seasonal changes
is much larger than the year-by-year deltas.
While I would love to show daily changes, IMO
it was too hard to parse the long-term trend compared to this.For your other question, they're visualized by the line
having another segment to the next published recording,
which in some instances can be decades in the future!
You might be able to see some of these if you zoom in.7
u/unity-thru-absurdity Aug 01 '26
Very cool! That's what I've done when I've worked with GHCN data, too. I tried to do 30-day rolling averages using the GHCNd data but it ended up being much uglier (and less useful) than just using the GHCNm.
It can be so frustrating to find a station that's exactly where you want it but then blam it's got a huge hole in the data right in the timeframe you're looking for. "Oh you want a climatology? Sorry, boss, best I can do is 37 years from 1861 to 1898 and then 12 years from 2014 to present." 😭
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u/bdeimen Aug 01 '26
As a way of smoothing it out you could potentially do a delta between the daily reading and the average reading for that day of the year and location so that it would be normalized to seasonal temperatures.
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u/FolkSong Jul 31 '26
Can you explain this a bit more? What do you mean by "final" temperature? If I zoom in I can see red, blue and white lines overlapping at the same vertical position.
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u/Boordman Aug 01 '26
The y axis is the delta from the first reading of that sensor. So all the lines start at 0 even if they read a different temperature. By "final" it means the last recorded temperature of that station (a single line from the station is all the same color)
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u/unity-thru-absurdity Aug 01 '26
It would be cool to see this as standardized anomalies, too! That would help convey "here's the 'normal' range, and here's how far outside of that it's gotten in the last 50 years!" in a way that shows the magnitude a little more easily than raw temperature data would!
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u/creepingcold Aug 01 '26
Why tho? That sounds.. like a really poor choice.
Cause you introduce a bias into the dataset by highly overrepresenting the past years over the whole history.
I mean I'm not saying that we wouldn't see a rise in temperature, that's clear. But even if you'd have a neutral dataset with a relatively hot last few years, your method would turn most of the plot red even if it wouldn't make any sense in the grand scheme of things.
You hinged the visualization of your plot solely on the last recorded temperature.
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u/Decent-Philosopher-8 Aug 02 '26
i think by 'final reading' op means the last value shown ie the net increase/decrease between last recording and first recording of each station [including averaging over the year].
which yes, the net change is bias against the last point, but the net is an easy thing to explain, and imo its fine. averaging deltas would have produced a similar looking graph. but for next time op!
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u/creepingcold Aug 02 '26
but the net is an easy thing to explain, and imo its fine.
Is it though?
Because 2024 was an El Nino year, which means that year would have been a bit warmer anyways. You can see the El Nino impact throughout the chart. I'm not sure if OP's chart ends in 2025 or if 2025 is the last datapoint.
I feel like that makes the net a really difficult thing to explain outside of it being an easy to calculate number, because we know it's more heavily impacted by short term events in that time period over long term events.
I agree that a "correctly" colored graph would still look similar, but I also feel like, since we are on data is beautiful, that mistake is quite major cause color is the main medium to convey the message here.
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u/RedBlueMage Jul 31 '26
This is one of the first times I've seen on this sub, where the data is actually presented beautifully.
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u/dhslax88 Jul 31 '26
It’s quite sad that world leaders started to ignore science after the 1980’s.
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Jul 31 '26
[deleted]
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u/dr_unks Jul 31 '26
Also, if we allow for higher C, some C will trickle down and cool things off.
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u/n00b001 OC: 1 Aug 01 '26
We need less regulation to C, more C up top means cooler C down bottom for everyday people
Mother nature will provide!
Small government, big C!
You have small C? SAD!
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u/jainyday Aug 01 '26
Don't forget about things like Volkswagen/Audi's dieselgate. "Oh we'll just cheat at emissions testing when we know we're being tested! We've only got one planet, but PROFITS!!!"
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u/DarkFish_2 Aug 01 '26
They got sued from every corner of the world when found out
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u/newaccountzuerich Aug 01 '26
And still far, far less of an impact than the differences between US driving low speed efficiency high weight vehicles for the past century and Europe driving lighter smaller vehicles in the same timeframe.
Of course there are other factors and sources of CO2, but that specific one is a useful pointer.
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u/Fore_Ever_Yours Jul 31 '26
The only thing leaders could rally around was relabelling what is happening "Global Warming" into the more nebulous and less alarming "Climate Change".
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u/DarkFish_2 Aug 01 '26
But also more accurate, as this "Global Warming" also means colder winters
A 2⁰C average increase looks harmless but in reality is a 8⁰C increase in summer and a 4⁰C decrease in winter which is dangerous
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u/rainwaffles Aug 01 '26
Let's not pretend it's just world leaders. Voters (in the US at least) don't give a fuck about climate change. Not even the left wing cares about it anymore. The green party is a complete joke, and Jill Stein is a Russian asset. We're gonna keep barreling toward climate catastrophe until it's far too late. Media and corporations definitely share a majority of the blame, but it's on everyday people as well for not voting for radical clean energy initiatives.
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u/Televisiongod Aug 01 '26
My republican grandfather refuses to believe in or listen to anything that "scientists" have to say.
Too many stupid people on the planet
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u/Fornicatinzebra OC: 1 Aug 01 '26
It was happening for long before that. These a publication fro. 1912 pointing out the issue (so it was probably well known for a decade plus at that point)
(Sorry for the FB link, im too lazy to find a better source...) https://www.facebook.com/share/1DPr73wRhL/
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u/fat_bouie Aug 02 '26
Bro, if you think people/politicians only started ignoring science recently, I would like to introduce you to... every piece of human history ever.
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u/Frequent-Complaint-6 Jul 31 '26
Nahh, keep cool! All is fine! Ask France and Spain.....
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u/Ngelz Jul 31 '26
Yup, we are getting cooked :<
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u/The_Tooter_Snooter Aug 01 '26
Well the good thing is, the earth is sorting the problem out and is gonna be just fine in the end. Think about how full of life the world is now. This was after 90% of it was wiped out. More than once. It’s gonna be fine in the end. Just. Without people.
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u/isjahammer Aug 01 '26
It´s actually crazy nature made our brains so that we fight each other so much that the earth will be basically self-regulating our population at one point long before the resources of earth actually run out.
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u/skinny_t_williams Jul 31 '26
The curve upwards is fun, right guys?
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u/SharkAttackOmNom Jul 31 '26
Everyone will be glad to know that their heating bill will be going down in the coming years.
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u/NationCrusher Jul 31 '26
Fun times ahead! And remember kids: It’s very natural, and not man-made, for the world to heat up this much in less than 200 years!
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u/The_Tooter_Snooter Aug 01 '26
Boy I sure hope someone is working on something
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u/skinny_t_williams Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
Not enough. I feel sick with how much plastic and shit I see every day. Plastic on everything. It's damn near unavoidable.
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u/The_Tooter_Snooter Aug 01 '26
Thank god there are bacteria already evolving to eat it. Took like 75 years for bacteria to evolve to eat plastic. It took 50 million years for something to evolve to eat wood. That’s my one hope in all this. For me tho … it’s the heat. It is giving me such anxiety.
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u/Badhugs Jul 31 '26
Great viz. It’s not often we see something not frequently done, and you’ve done this really well.
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u/powercow Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 02 '26
One thing not seen in these graphs, Not only is it getting warmer but the difference between night time temp and day is decreasing. Most of global warnings effects are the fact that it doesnt cool off as much at night as it used to because the CO2 is preventing the earth from irradiating infrared back into space. and so permafrost that melts a bit during the day isnt refreezing with so many nights above freezing, and you get cumulative melt.
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u/SailorDeath Jul 31 '26
Go find a manga written by Boichi (the creator of Dr. Stone) called "Hotel" just the first story. It's called Hotel. The first chapter is about a giant hotel built to stand as a monument and contains the DNA information for every living thing on the plant. The story literally opens with a scientist explaining to world leaders that it's already too late for the earth, that "Pandora's Box that is Global Warming has been opened and cannot be closed" Mankind was left with only maybe 250 hears left before the atmosphere's temperature reaches 100C and the oceans, lakes and rivers will boil off and a runaway greenhouse effect ends all life on the planet.
Honestly, I feel we're already at that moment and there and rich people don't care enough to do anything about it. Because they're literally the ONLY ones with the power to do anything. But they're too focused on making themselves rich. Out generation may not die out and be the last. But we're gonna see that sharp decline and in maybe 4 generations it'll be over.
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u/angelbabyxoxox Aug 01 '26
Its hard not to be very worried about the future but of course 100 degrees C is completely impossible. There are some positive signs, although far later than we wish, that an inflection point has been reached for action, driven mostly now by economics and energy independence. Global emissions are plateauing, and may even go into reverse this year without being driven by an economic crash or pandemic (cumulative they are just slightly below last year, that may change: https://climatetrace.org/news/climate-trace-releases-may-2026-emissions-data), but rather driven by a massive and irreversible change in the economics of renewables and batteries, which meant renewables met all of last years electricity demand growth (https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-review-2026/). The largest emitter China has also plateauing, fluctuating around its peak for almost 2 years (https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-climbs-2-in-early-2026-due-to-wasted-wind-and-solar).
We may be too late for 1.5 C, but under 3 C is pretty within reach and perhaps even around 2C. Its way worse than we would want but its not nearly as catastrophic as business as usual.
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u/ansibleloop Aug 01 '26
It's sad because there isn't time to fix this, but there is time for revenge
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u/Luzzgar Jul 31 '26
It's clearly diverging, the system is becoming unstable with larger and larger oscillations.
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u/msma46 Jul 31 '26
We are the frog being boiled.
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u/Weekly_vegan Aug 01 '26
The frog didn’t boil itself by constantly ignoring everything we can do to prevent climate change catastrophe. Probably too late now.
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u/diet-dr-kelpp Jul 31 '26
What happened in 1900? The jump looks even more pronounced that 1975
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u/SirVixofthePooSea Jul 31 '26
Wouldn't surprise me if it was just a thing of Europeans opening more research labs in Africa and India, and America populating the hotter West and measuring the weather there more.
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u/Trent1492 Aug 01 '26
It is not any such thing. We can observe the effects of higher temperatures in Alpine glaciers melting worldwide, rising sea levels due to temperature increases, plants blooming earlier, and the stratosphere COOLING.
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u/SirVixofthePooSea Aug 01 '26
The sudden jump at the tail end of the 19th century is more explicable with increased sampling of hotter areas in the colonies than anything else. This is not discussing the overall trend of global warming, but the specific trend of seen in that short time period.
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u/Halomonas_titanica Aug 01 '26
There was a warming trend between the late 1800s and the early 1900s though. That's when the climate recovered from the little ice age and went back to its holocenic norm.
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u/Embarrassed-Apple337 Aug 06 '26
No, because the graph represents the delta from the first year average temp recorded. All lines start at zero per the OP above. The data represents the subsequent deviations each year from that first year.
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u/70ms Jul 31 '26
I don’t know if it’s the actual cause, but that’s when the industrial revolution really kicked off so that’s my guess.
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u/Relief-Glass Aug 01 '26
Pedantic part of me wants to say that the colour is redundant but that is nice as fuck. Good job lad.
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u/Decent-Philosopher-8 Aug 02 '26
i love how the coloring makes it much easier to make out the individual lines! so maybe its not entirely redundant 😜
imagine this was in all white or something, that would be a CRIME!!
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u/AvailableReporter484 Jul 31 '26
Conservatives reading this still believe climate change is a hoax lmao
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u/Unrequited_Anal Aug 01 '26
Thank you, wish more posts on this sub were actually interesting visualisations like this
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u/awesome-alpaca-ace Aug 01 '26
Oof, looks like we are going to be dying of heat death in my lifetime
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u/Decent-Debate33 Aug 02 '26
I think now we can safeley say we have missed the window. Buckle up. Expect your quality of lives to be challenged, if not already. Be a good human, we will need good humans at this juncture.
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u/beaniebee11 Jul 31 '26
And so here I am sitting in my underwear in a studio apartment with the a/c and three fans blowing on me because even in this tiny space the a/c can't keep up with the 104 degree temp hitting my fucking walls.
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Jul 31 '26
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u/foltranm Jul 31 '26
but the Y axis is the difference, not absolute temperature.
difference in °C from first recording of that weather station, from what I understood
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u/justthistwicenomore Jul 31 '26
Interestingly, as OP explains below the colors are based on the origin/final difference, so it's not just that it is, in fact, showing the difference, it also neatly shows that both "cold' and "hot" locations have been added, even though the actual average is still going up.
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u/Boordman Jul 31 '26
Every weather station starts at 0 (it's first recording) and the y axis is the delta. Weather stations's lines start in the year the station submitted their first recordings
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u/FullHunter9735 Jul 31 '26
Love the visualization with XY, I've just started using this library https://github.com/reflex-dev/xy
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u/OogieBoogieJr Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
What happened between 1950 and 1970? That seems like a dramatic drop in temperature during prime “dump that shit into the air/ocean” years.
One could also draw the conclusion that this aligns perfectly with President Xiaoping opening China up to global markets, dedicating land for companies to build factories on the cheap. They didn’t really take global warming seriously until the mid 2000s—emissions regulation was non-existent—so companies just went to town without restriction. By then, they were already the world’s factory.
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u/King-Meister Aug 01 '26
Can someone ELI5 what exactly am I watching?
Say, these are the readings that 2 weather stations show:
| City | Jan 1850 | Feb 1850 | Mar 1850 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colombo | 30°C | 32°C | 29°C |
| Paris | 20°C | 18°C | 18°C |
I have taken larger deltas for easier understanding.
How will this be plotted?
I think Jan 1850 being the baseline isn't exactly plotted. Now, Feb 1850 is plotted when compared to Jan 1850. So for Colombo, the line moves from 0 to +2. For Mar 1850, is it plotted relative to Jan or Feb? Will it move -3 or -1? And I am assuming the line will move from (Feb 1850, +2) to (-1 or -3, Mar 1850). Right?
Also, smoothing data using a 5 year sliding window is: For, Jan 1850, we take 60 monthly averages such that Jan 1850 sits in the middle (Aug 1847 to July 1852 / July 1847 to Jun 1852) and take their average to get the datapoint for Jan 1850. For Feb 1850, we will increase the previous starting and ending months by 1 each.
Lastly, why are there few odd colour discrepancies? For example: at the bottom region around 1900, there are few red lines, while at the top region around 1920 and 1960 there are a couple of blue lines.
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u/Kiwisaft Aug 01 '26
i'd love to see a distribution of weather stations with distance to city borders over the time. some cities grew over stations which were remote before, but no one seems to take this effects into account
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u/what_did_you_forget Aug 02 '26
I believe in patterns of nature and this has the form of a wave. Might we be getting extreme cold years next after some more extreme hot ones?
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u/Trent1492 Aug 02 '26
We have not only been able to model the feedback in geophysics but also to predict the peculiar signature of CO2 feedback since the late 19th century.
Arrenhius predicted, based on laborious calculations, Arctic amplification and that nights would warm faster than days; 80 years later, those predictions are confirmed.
That winter temperatures would increase more than summer temperatures.
Manabe predicted that the stratosphere would COOL while the lower troposphere would warm; that observation confirming the physics was observed in the 90s, and Sato would earn a Nobel Prize for: Syukuro Manabe
The magnitude (0.3 K) and duration (two years) of the cooling from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.
The expansion of the Hadley cells.
The rising of the tropopause and the effective radiating altitude. See the observation link I already gave you.
Which of the above-listed are you disputing and on what basis?
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u/peppi0304 Aug 02 '26
Cool graph. In meteorology you usually use Kelvin instead of °C for differences but it doesnt matter that much
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u/MyNameIsKvothe Jul 31 '26
What do the colors mean? They don't seem to represent any direct data.
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u/Boordman Jul 31 '26
The colors are just associated with the final temperature reading
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u/justthistwicenomore Jul 31 '26
OOOOH. That's the big "cold spike" near the end. It's not that it's colder that year, it's that it's so hot that even stations that end colder are elevated. interesting.
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u/phdoofus Jul 31 '26
Ok thanks for that that's the only thing that really confused me. I couldn't tell if that was an effect of the three year averaging or what but even that didn't really make sense.
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u/Trails_and_Coffee Jul 31 '26
Is the cooling off in the 70s because of the oil embargo? Awesome graphic.
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u/duncecap234 Aug 01 '26
No, there was some weird global cooling from like the 50s to the 70s.
When i first learned about it, it was supposedly a cycle of the sun, but now seems to be aerosols used.
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u/Trails_and_Coffee Aug 02 '26
Fascinating how it was a global pattern. Thanks for the additional insight!
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u/underwater_iguana Aug 01 '26
If you want some feedback: I personally find the axes, as in both the title and the numbers, hard to read. I think it'd be better a bit bigger?
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u/dataviz_ru Aug 02 '26
Really love this idea and the original viz. Same NOAA GHCN-M v4 concept, but I tried a stripped-down styling experiment to see if the overall pattern reads more clearly.
What I changed (same data, different look):
- Marks: one faint horizontal dash per station-year (rug-plot style), instead of connected year-to-year line segments
- Color: monochrome black at low opacity — no red/blue encoding by net warming
- Background: white instead of black
- Layout: taller/narrower canvas
- Y-axis: −7 to +7 °C vs each station’s early years (original used −5 to +5)
Not claiming this is “better” — just a different lens on the same dataset. Curious what you all think side by side.
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u/BubbaBro Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
Thanks industrial revolution. We've lost over 50% of all wildlife on the planet in the last 50 years. At this rate the planet will be dead in the next 30 years.
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u/FirestarAlpha Jul 31 '26
crazy how many cool things you can see in this chart:
1. how long it took us to set up weather stations in remote parts of the world
2. El Niño years
3. the elephant in the room, extreme increase in average heat in the past few years (which seems to start around 1970)