Using ggplot2 to recreate iconic warming stripes visualization of climate change (CC216)

May 26, 2022 • PD Schloss • 1 min read

Pat uses tools from the ggplot2 R packge to recreate a the iconic warming stripes visualization using NASA’s GISS data. This figure shows the deviation in annual global mean temperatures from the normalized temperatures of 1951 to 1980 as a heatmap. The bars are colored according to the deviation from the average global temperature. He uses geom_tile, scale_fillsteps2, scale_fillstepsn, and a smattering of arguments from the theme function to create this provocative visual. All of this is done in R with the help of RStudio.

Code

You can browse the state of the repository at the