For my final data visualization project, I chose to work with CIMIS (California Irrigation Management Information System). This dataset gave me great amounts of data on California's environmental state that had been collected from September 1990 to present. Each data point is noted by a station system.
I wanted to create a visualization that would allow users to look at the heat in California July's over the years, by looking at air temperature and soil temperature.
In my visualization, the data points (stations) are represented by ellipses, the Average Air Temperature (AAT) being represented by color and the Average Soil Temperature (AST) being represented by the size of the ellipse.
To interact with the visualization, move the slider to see summers from 2000 - present. There is a key on the side of the visualization where you can see what each color represents. You can also see the exact AAT and AST during that time if you hover over the station. The year of the data set will also be displayed around the bottom of the map.
One interesting thing I noticed during this project is how no matter the year, the coastal data points always report as cooler. This is because of how the sea absorbs the heat of the sun a lot better compared to soil during the day, so the air and overall temperature close to the sea is cooler compared to inland stations. Also how stations became hotter as years went on, most definitely due to Climate Change.
Something I still wonder about is why the stations in SoCal always are hotter compared the the cooler NorCal stations.