Ed Hawkins: Spiralling global temperatures (1850 - 2016)

Editor of the Climate Lab Book and SMURPHS Investigator, Ed Hawkins has created an animated infographic showing how global temperatures have increased from 1850 to the present day. This very powerful and effective visualization of global warming has attracted a global audience, not least on Twitter where it has gone viral. It has also been picked up by the wider media. In his article in the Washington Post, Chris Mooney writes, 'At a time when scientists, nonprofits, and universities are more and more focusing on communicating research results better, Hawkins basically just hit a grand slam — and not through some clever turn of phrase or some new metaphor or framing, but rather, through viral data visualization.'