Monday Connect: Your Climate/Weather Visualized in Stripes / Art

The Plaza
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There is no case needed to made here, anywhere for climate change (I am ignoring the ignorants who ignore science), but came across this week two fascinating means of “seeing” it locally as a visualization. Here are two for this week’s monday-connect

First, one you may have seen rippling across your socials is ShowYourStripes,, a visualization of yearly temperature change in world regions, cities going back to 1900. Created by Ed Hawkins at the University of Reading, it shows rather clearly the stripes run from mainly blue to mainly red in recent years, illustrating the increase in average temperatures in locations.

The closest location to me I could find stripes for was for Calgary Alberta

Bands of vertical stripes representing yearly temperature going back to 066 mostly blue on left to more red on right
Bands of vertical stripes representing yearly temperature going back to 066 mostly blue on left to more red on right3780×2126 28.8 KB

You will see variation in many portions, a notable bluish periods in late 1960s to mid 1970s, but stand back and you can see the trends.

How about finding your stripes and share them here? Are they different in any way? Or migh they make for some kind of art.

Speaking of art, I also came across this little fun visualization shared by @dajbelshaw that represents your current local weather (which we know is not climate) https://rothko.joonas.wtf/ as a matching abstract art painting by Mark Rothko.

It probably sounds a bit bizarre, but give it a spin and share the results.

I tried last week on sunny day and got No.5/No.22 (“Bright open weather — the yellow field carries the same radiant hour.” ) but the canvas is much different today on a rainy Sunday.

Local weather conditions for Moose Jaw, SK listed in left, 15°C with mood register colors matched on right to abstrat painting of orange lower third, with a red stripe above, and golden yellow at top, the panting is Rothko's No. 5 / No. 22.
Local weather conditions for Moose Jaw, SK listed in left, 15°C with mood register colors matched on right to abstrat painting of orange lower third, with a red stripe above, and golden yellow at top, the panting is Rothko's No. 5 / No. 22.2144×1632 132 KB

Find your local weather and share the location and the matching Rothko art. Does it. match?

Also, as aide discovery for the images used in this site, WikiArt and utterly amazing resource and source of artworks and information about art. It alone is worth a but more exploration.

Share your Stripes! Share your Rothko weather report! Let’s compare.

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Here are some stripes for Vancouver, BC, Canada. I also appreciate the options to change the views a bit, so included one that provides further info about the stripes and what they mean!

Interesting to see a red spike around the late 50s or sometime in the 60s, but overall the trend is pretty clear. I moved here in the early 2000s so I have been here for a lot of the warming trend and missed the earlier cooler climate.

A field of vertical stripes, some bluish tints (representing cooler climate) and some reddish (representing warmer). These stripes go from earlier years on the left to later years on the right, and there is a clear trend of going from more blue earlier to more orange and red later.
A field of vertical stripes, some bluish tints (representing cooler climate) and some reddish (representing warmer). These stripes go from earlier years on the left to later years on the right, and there is a clear trend of going from more blue earlier to more orange and red later.3780×2126 28.7 KB

A bar chart for Vancouver showing climate temperature change over time, relative to the average of 1961-2010. Blueish bars dominate in earlier years, showing lower temperatures relative to the average. Starting around the early 2000s, reddish bars start to dominate, showing higher temperatures than the average.
A bar chart for Vancouver showing climate temperature change over time, relative to the average of 1961-2010. Blueish bars dominate in earlier years, showing lower temperatures relative to the average. Starting around the early 2000s, reddish bars start to dominate, showing higher temperatures than the average.3780×2126 103 KB

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And here’s the Rothko for this Vancouver morning (it’s not actually overcast right now where I am but it will be soon!). This does evoke some of the feelings of Vancouver in the dark grey of raininess that we often get.

Painting with two large horizontal areas: very dark brown on top, with dark, dim grey on the bottom. It looks like a bare landscape at night with no trees or anything else on the ground.
Painting with two large horizontal areas: very dark brown on top, with dark, dim grey on the bottom. It looks like a bare landscape at night with no trees or anything else on the ground.980×1510 114 KB

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Nice to see your stripes!

The thing I keep in mind from my years of studying Geology is that the climate we have known as “normal” for the last 100 years, is fortunately mild and maybe abnormal on the longer term geologica scale of patterns of glaciation.

it follows the tail of the Little Ice Age that included years where the Thames River completely froze over, heck they even had Frost Fairs.