Region Climate Stripes
Select a region to view climate stripes
Overview
Developed by Professor Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the University of Reading, climate stripes offer a clear and widely used visual representation of the sustained rise in temperatures driven by recent changes in climate, with each stripe indicating the annual temperature compared to a long-term average.
The Queensland Government has integrated historical temperature data and projections from the latest climate models to produce climate stripes that stretch from 1890 to 2100 for Queensland’s regional planning areas. Select your area of interest using the interactive map or drop-down menu and choose “historical” or “historical + future” climate stripes. In the original climate stripes based on historical temperature records, red stripes denote warmer than average years whereas blue stripes are cooler than average. For exploring projected warming, we have adjusted the colour scale to account for the significant additional warming anticipated. Further details about the methods used to create the climate stripes and additional sources of information can be accessed using the tabs above.
Scientific Background
Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are responsible for approximately 1.1°C of global warming (across all land and oceans) since 1850-1900. Australia and Queensland have warmed by 1.6 °C and 1.7 °C, respectively. Professor Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the University of Reading, created the climate stripes in 2018 as a tool for communicating global and regional warming, with each stripe indicating the annual temperature compared to a long-term average. Red stripes typically correspond to hotter than average years and blue stripes cooler than average years. The images have been widely applied across various fields, appearing on book and magazine covers, influencing fashion design, featuring on athletic team uniforms, and even being incorporated into public infrastructure and famous landmarks.
The Queensland Government has combined historical temperature data and projections from the latest climate models to produce climate stripes that stretch from 1890 to 2100 for Queensland’s regional planning areas.
For the historical climate record (1890–2024), the Queensland Government utilised SILO gridded temperature data, a widely recognised Australian climate dataset spanning from 1889 to the present. SILO uses observational data collated from weather station records obtained from the Bureau of Meteorology and other providers. Mathematical interpolation techniques are then used to construct spatial grids and infill gaps in time series datasets. Gridded SILO maximum and minimum daily temperatures for all of Queensland were extracted up to the end of 2024. The average of these two variables was subsequently used as an estimate of the mean daily temperature.
This historical dataset was then combined with regional climate siulations from the Queensland Future Climate Science Program. The Queensland Government has produced high-resolution climate change projections for Australasia by dynamically downscaling global climate models (GCMs) from the latest phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). Eleven CMIP6 GCMs were selected to produce the downscaled future climate simulations with three models run in multiple configurations, leading to an ensemble of 15 downscaled simulations, with the average of this ensemble used to create the climate stripes. Queensland’s CMIP6 regional climate simulations (named QldFCP-2) were performed for three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5 and SSP3-7.0), with each scenario representing a plausible pathway for future greenhouse gas concentrations. Projections of maximum and minimum daily temperatures were bias-corrected using SILO data for calibration, resulting in a high-resolution (5 km) dataset aligned with the historical SILO records.
After constructing the complete time series of mean daily temperatures spanning 1890 to 2100, the data were averaged annually, and regional averages were calculated for each of Queensland’s regional planning areas. This approach highlights the spatial variability in warming trends across Queensland’s diverse regions. The changes in temperature displayed in the climate stripes were calculated using a reference period of 1961-2010, which is the reference period used in the original climate stripes produced by Ed Hawkins. Users can switch between climate stripes produced using only the historical temperatures or using the combined historical and future projections dataset. For the historical only option, the traditional climate stripes colour palette was used where years with an annual temperature below the average during the reference period are coloured blue and years with annual temperatures above this average are coloured red. The inclusion of the projections data requires modification of the traditional blue to red colour palette to account for the greater levels of warming reached. Therefore, for the combined historical and future option, the colour scale was adjusted so that years with temperatures above the reference period average were assigned colours ranging from light tan to dark red. This is consistent with the colour palettes used by the IPCC synthesis report and NASA Climate Legacies who also use climate stripes to illustrate projected future warming.
Useful links
A website dedicated to warming stripes and their influence. The site highlights examples of climate stripes being used in a variety of fields such as book and magazine covers, fashion, sports jerseys, public transport, and displays on national landmarks worldwide.
Summarizes all of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Working Group and Special Reports. This report presented the figure (Figure SPM.1c.) that served as the inspiration for both NASA’s Climate legacies (see below) and the Queensland Government’s climate stripes tool.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Provides an assessment of the latest research and observations of physical climate science, climate impacts and adaptation, and climate mitigation in a developing world. The IPCC completed its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) cycle in 2023.
Website that allows users to create their own global climate stripes timeline by adding themselves, family and friends using a web-based tool to see how different generations experience a changing climate.
University of Reading YouTube Video
Professor Ed Hawkins, the creator of climate stripes, and climate scientist Dr Ella Gilbert present a short video that provides an overview of the history and fundamental principles behind the climate stripes visualization.
Web site that provides a platform to access climate summary information and projections data for all of Australia. The site provides a number of tools that allow users to explore different aspects of future climate change in different ways.
