A new climate change graphic shows how much temperatures have risen in Carlisle over recent years.
The Show Your Stripes project, created by Professor Ed Hawkins at the University of Reading, transforms complex temperature data from across the world into simple stripe graphics that show temperature change over time.
Initially, Cumbria did not have its own set of stripes, but Futureproof Cumbria, a Cumbrian climate change action charity, asked Professor Hawkins to specially create some for the county.
The charity made the decision to reach out to Prof Hawkins after getting requests from people asking for detailed local data that shows how climate change was impacting Cumbria.
Carlisle was chosen specifically as it is a significant population centre with a large history of recorded data.
Hazel Graham, climate and carbon literacy training manager at the charity, said the stripes were a simple but effective tool to show people the impact of climate change locally at a glance.
She said: “There’s a lot of information out there about the global picture, but through our climate and carbon literacy training, we’ve realised people really want to understand the local picture better.
“We were getting a lot of demand for the need for a good clear and local climate change information and we were aware of Prof Hawkins’ work, so we asked if he could create us some local stripes and he was kind enough to create them for us.”
The stripes show how temperatures in the city have changed since 1850 – over 170 years ago – up until the present day.
Hazel said: “It is a powerful visual record because it’s not the global picture, it’s the Carlisle picture. Each stripe is one year of temperature data, so the blues represent the colder years and the reds are the warmer years.
“You can see how as time moves forward the stripes shift really sharply to show the last 10 years as the hottest on record.”
The stripes intentionally blur the lines between science and art and often don’t feature numbers or appear in a graph format to be as simple as possible and to serve as both a warning and conversation starter about climate change.
Prof Hawkins’ climate stripes have been used across the world to illustrate global warming from being shown on festival stages, to being projected onto famous landmarks and even used in fashion – with a climate stripe scarf once being given to Pope Francis.
In Cumbria, Hazel said the stripes were another tool alongside traditional data for people to connect lived experiences with climate change science.
Hazel said people are also talking about their lived experiences of the impact of climate change locally more.
She added that during the charity’s climate training courses, thousands of people have talked about their lived experiences of changes in the climate in Cumbria, including noticing more flooding, less snow, changing growing seasons and pests impacting farmers, high temperatures impacting safety at work, and an increase in Lyme disease – caused by warmer temperatures making Tick populations active for longer.
She said: “We have just had the driest spring in 69 years. It’s not something for future generations to solve, it’s happening now.
“But very much so levels of concern are rising and 80 per cent of people nationally are concerned about climate change and want to see action on it.”
Hazel added that while climate change was a serious worldwide problem, there was still hope.
She said: “This is urgent, but it is not too late. There’s a real groundswell of people and businesses wanting to get involved to create a net zero carbon Cumbria by 2037.
“We welcome everyone to our climate and carbon literacy training and people can debate and discuss it with us. Everyone is at a different point of emotional response to it all.”
Futureproof Cumbria, formerly known as CAfS, has been working for the past 20 years to drive climate change action in the county.
It is also helping drive collaborative work to see Cumbria become a net zero carbon county by 2037.
Hazel has worked with the organisation for 12 years and helps deliver climate and carbon literacy training to people from all walks of life and businesses of all sizes across Cumbria.
The courses are run by climate change experts and help people understand climate science and sustainability practices that help combat climate change.
