ANS -- How To Read This Chart

This is an article about data, and global warming, and graphs.  I really liked the first half of the article.  See what you think.  

Find it here: https://s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/?trackId=62003ed0ade4e26343806a77&s=6521647ae42c2312737e389b&linknum=5&linktot=68&fbclid=IwAR0A0KlaPKdvkwZGB25ayRcU9xEK9PZn0ey0AC1DdzwDn1gBQXHxgr0qXz4 

--Kim

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How To Read This Chart: It's the end of the world as we show it Plus, learn when 'fajita' entered the dictionary!

By Philip Bump  Email Did a solar panel forward this to you? Sign up for yourself here. One of the first articles that I ever had go viral on the ol' internet was for the website Grist. It was titled, "If you're 27 or younger, you've never experienced a colder-than-average month." The predicate for the claim was monthly climate data released by the government that measured how much global warmth deviated from the average for the same month in the 20th century. It had been 27 years, I discovered, since any month was at or below that average. That article was written in 2012. It is now the case that you have to be at least 38 to have experienced a colder-than-average month. I didn't actually check that, to be honest, but it doesn't really seem like I need to; the warmest years in recorded history have all occurred since 2015. I can, however, add an additional bit of nuance. If you are 5 or younger, you've never experienced a day cooler than the baseline set for that day from 1979 to 2000. But more on that in a second. ADVERTISEMENT   Normally, I like to spend this newsletter talking about interesting or unique data visualizations — ideally addressing a subject that is, if not amusing or pleasant, then at least not apocalyptic. That will not describe this newsletter. We are going to kick things off with some straightforward charts presenting a dire picture of the state of the world. (If you are particularly impatient or averse to bad news, I can inform you that there is some fun stuff to follow. Hang in there!) The Washington Post's climate team this week reported on new temperature data showing that the surge in warmth that began in May has continued — and accelerated. Reporter Scott Dance — every Post employee must have a last name that can be both a noun and a verb — shared a chart like the one below, showing how 2023 stands out relative to the past few decades. (The data here is from a European Union program called Copernicus.) What's useful about a chart like this is how easy it is to see the outlier. And 2023 is very much that, surging out from the pack.  ADVERTISEMENT   All those gray lines don't really matter, but it is useful to explain what's being measured here. For each month from 1979 to 2023, the average global temperature is compared with the average from 1991 to 2020. So if a line climbs above the zero point, that month was warmer than the average. September 2023, for example, was almost a full degree (Celsius, also known as "French temperature") over the average for Septembers in that time period.  If we look at each month as a standard column graph, the trend becomes apparent — and September 2023 remains an obvious outlier. Why is this happening? Largely because of global warming caused by human activity. Not entirely; there are specific reasons this year has been warmer. But let's not pretend this is some hard-to-solve mystery, like we're involved in the world's hardest game of Clue. It was the humans, in their power plants, with the coal. Let's now come back to those daily temperatures I'd mentioned. Earlier this year, I shared a graph like the one below, illustrating how the global daily temperature had hit a record high. Well, the trend line for 2023 continues to show daily temperatures above every year from 1979 on. See how that red line sits outside all the gray ones — even above the black line, showing record heat from 2016? That's this year's anomaly. This data is from the University of Maine's Climate Reanalyzer and it provides a baseline of the average temperature from 1979 to 2000. It's been more than five years since a day's recorded temperature has come in below that baseline. So far this year, every day has been at least 0.3 degrees higher than that baseline. I added a bit of color to that graph to add another dimension of information: every red column shows a day on which the temperature was higher than the same day in any previous year since 1979. As you can see, the back half of the year is almost entirely red. I chose the color red because it's the color of heat and fire. Just a little behind-the-scenes peek at the subtle metaphors I inject into my work.   Jump scare (b. 1986)! Okay, that was grim. Let us now transition to a fun tool from Merriam-Webster, allowing you see what words first came into use in a given year. You will use this to see what words were first used in the year you were born, because this is what people do. That is what I did, and these were the words. A selection of words that all debuted in the same year. (Merriam-Webster) I'm not going to say what year it is, though it's obviously going to be easy to figure out. But putting it here in this email seems like it makes it just a bit too easy for identity thieves, a criminal group that makes up two-thirds of this newsletter's audience. If someone is going to steal my identity and enjoy my double-digit bank accounts, they need to do some work. Anyway, it's fun to play around with. You can learn that "global warming" came into use in 1953 and that the related phrase, "French temperature," was introduced in a newsletter in October 2023. Lots to explore.   Chartpourri (b. circa 2022)! (I don't remember when I invented "chartpourri" as a term of art, so an estimate will suffice. Just a little behind-the-scenes peek at my limited long-term memory!) Here are some things I learned this week from data visualizations. I learned that the government-operated GOES satellite can detect and display fog layers. On this animation, shared earlier this week, you can see strips of fog sliding over the northeast. (National Weather Service) I also learned from an old FiveThirtyEight (now ABC Presents 538™ or something) article that public sentiment on the economy leads media coverage, rather than following it. That article includes this chart, showing how coverage (pink) trails public views (black). And I learned, thanks to my friend Brian Feldman's always-funny Substack, that the game "Thief Simulator" alternates between costing $20 and $2 and almost never lands anywhere in between. Just one or the other, into eternity. "Thief Simulator" price changes. (Deku Deals via Bnet) I also learned, after reading that article, that I own "Thief Simulator," presumably having purchased it during one of those $2 downturns. According to Steam (a video game management application), I have played it for a grand total of 48 minutes. As I recall, it mostly involves stealing things from houses and not stealing people's identities, so two-thirds of you wouldn't find it very interesting. But kudos to the developers for separating me from two bucks without even knowing what year I was born.