What are warming stripes?

From the cover of Greta Thunberg’s book to the jersey of a Premier League football team, warming stripes are everywhere. While climate science is complex and sometimes lacks powerful communication vehicles, the popularity of warming stripes has partly made up for this, with thunderous success and more than a million downloads the week of their release in 2018.

Return to this article to become knowledgeable about warming stripes and help make them known.

What are Climate or Warming Stripes?

Warming stripes are a visual representation of the temperature change measured in each country, region or city over the last more than 100 years. Designed by climatologist Ed Hawkins in 2018, these bands illustrate how annual temperatures change compared to the historical average.

Each band or bar represents the temperature of that country, region or city, averaged over a year, ordered chronologically. The strips usually start around the year 1900 and end in 2022.

Colors vary from blue to red, with shades of blue indicating below-average temperatures and shades of red indicating above-average temperatures.

Taken together, it creates a striking picture of the warming trend over a period of time, often from the start of the industrial era to the current year.. The transition from blue to red bands in recent decades illustrates the increase in average temperatures on a global scale, such as in France where global warming is more marked.

France is warming up faster than the rest of the world

The bands visible on the article’s thumbnail represent global warming in France. While the world has already warmed by +1.1/1.2°C since the start of the industrial era, France is warming faster than the rest of the world. The global rise in temperatures takes into account the oceans which warm less quickly than the continents », explains Aurélien Ribes. “The average rise in continental temperatures worldwide is 1.6°C, so France is no exception.”

Indeed, in France we are already at +1.7°C since the start of the industrial era. And according to Ribes & al, “the France of 2100 could be 3.8°C warmer than that of the beginning of the 20th century”. By adapting the method used by the IPCC to estimate global warming to France, the team finds that by 2100, “this increase would be 3.8°C compared to the beginning of the 20th century, in a scenario of moderate greenhouse gas emissions“.

What is the objective of warming stripes?

The goal of the warming strips is to communicate the concept of climate change in a simple and immediately understandable way, without the use of complicated graphics or scientific jargon.

Warming stripes have become a powerful symbol of climate change communication and are often used in education, media and even on merchandise to raise awareness.

In particular, they help launch conversations about our warming world and the risks of climate change.

Why are there no numbers in the picture?

Scientific data is usually illustrated with lots of numbers, which does not always facilitate communication about the climate. The creator chose to simplify the message to maximize its effectiveness:

These graphics were specifically designed to be as simple as possible and to start conversations about our warming world and the risks of climate change. There are many other sources of information that provide more precise details on changing temperatures. These graphs therefore fill a gap and make it possible to communicate with a minimum of scientific knowledge to understand their meaning. Four different versions of the graphics are available for each location, with different details included, allowing everyone to choose the version that best suits their audience.

Indeed, if you want graphs with dates, curves, figures and more if you like, you can find this in the various IPCC reports:

A warming stripes jacket?!

As desired by Ed Hawkins, the goal of the warming bands is to communicate the concept of climate change in a simple and immediately understandable way, without the use of complicated graphics or scientific jargon.

Warming stripes have become a powerful symbol of climate change communication and are often used in education, media and even on merchandise to raise awareness.

The work jacket was chosen so that it can be worn everywhere – from climate demonstrations to TV sets, among friends, in conferences – a message of alert and open a space for constructive dialogue between those who wear it. will see.

On the reference site the Good Goods, founder Victoire Satto explains the benefit of having a robust jacket that lasts over time:

This garment was chosen for its symbolic significance : it is a universal, very popular piece, appreciated for its simple style, wearable by everyone, whether you have workwear origins or a simple appetite for contemporary trends. It is very robust and therefore durable over time, which reduces its environmental footprint over the years and multiple lives in a circular cycle. In a more pragmatic approach, it is also a unisex/non-gendered, versatile and mid-season garment to wear as a jacket in summer, as an overshirt or over a sweater in winter.

How to get the Warming Stripes Jacket?

After discussion with the different people who were at the heart of the project, and a vote by the readers of The Good Goods and Bon Pote, the jacket which was only to be made in two copies will finally be accessible to everyone .

An FAQ has been specially designed to answer all your questions. It is important to remember that the authors will receive 0 euros of profit, that this is not the issue, and if the sale of the jackets ever allows a profit to be made, the money will go directly to financing the costs of advocate for climate activists who take risks to raise awareness of the climate emergency.

To the question “Do you really think you are going to change the world with a jacket?” the answer is… no, of course! And besides, no one can claim to change the world alone. The goal here is to talk about global warming in any way possible, and the jacket is a great way to do that, especially through what’s called climate shading.

It is possible to have an impact on a person, even if it is difficult to quantify, through a simple discussion at the coffee machine. But if this person has significant levers of action available and/or radically changes their lifestyle, the objective has already been achieved.