Visualizing Climate Change Data

Our artwork is trying to show the detrimental effects of climate change and how that causes glaciers to melt and what that ensues for us, humans and also animals. This causes the ocean to rise around the world which can lead to the damage of many coastal areas. That is why we chose to include details such as the islands slowly going underwater and the polar bears who get increasingly unhealthy. One dataset we used was the Cumulative Mass Balance of Glaciers in Antarctica and the Greenland which is represented with the tissue paper lines. The dark blue represents Antarctica and the light blue represents Greenland. The other dataset we used was Annual Ocean Temperature Anomaly which is represented with the surface of the ocean. While viewing our artwork, we hope you think about the effect that climate change is having on the rest of the world. And it will only get worse from here. That is why we must stop climate change now and reduce our carbon emission even if it is just in small ways such as using reusable water bottles.

Hailey and Lily

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Our artwork is demonstrating the increase of wildfires which is caused by the decrease in droughts. The droughts are caused by higher CO2 levels and temperature which is causing a more dry climate. When the climate is dry that causes forest spaces to be very vulnerable to catching on fire and it spreads easier. In our poster the fire was shown by the red, yellow, and orange flames increasingly going up. In the area of our artwork we chose to showcase the increase in droughts by using healthier and taller trees to show if the climate at that time period was healthy. To show if the climate was not healthy for a tree to grow we drew dying trees. To add more depth and truly make the artwork standout we also used painting the background different colors based off of the healthier climate time periods. For example, we used a turquoise color if the trees had a healthy environment, but used a brown and yellow color if the trees growing environment was not as healthy and wouldn’t allow the greenhouse effect to continue. Another data set that we used in our art piece was the CO2 levels from 1980-2020. We showcased our data by using mini thermometers at the top. We filled in the thermometer little by little as the years went on, based on past temperatures. We hope that when people look at our artwork they notice our animal feature that we included to showcase how not only us humans are suffering but also wildlife. 

Verity, Shiloh, Natalia

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Our artwork is trying to show the effects of tornadoes on people’s daily lives and how the rise in temperature and the rise in wind speed is resulting in more tornadoes. We included the data in our artwork by sketching the graph lines onto the paper, and we also included the temperature data by drawing thermometers and adding the temperature where the thermometer was placed on the artwork. I hope that people think about how devastating the effects of tornadoes can be, and how people need to prepare for even worse tornadoes in the future due to the rise in temperature and wind speed. The consequences of higher temperatures and higher wind speeds aren’t just limited to tornadoes. It also results in more extreme weather events, such as large thunderstorms or rainstorms. However, there is still hope to turn things around. Some steps you could take to mitigate the impacts of climate change would be reducing the amount of carbon emission. You will find that later in our slideshow that increasing carbon dioxide is a leading cause to the increase in extreme weathers such as tornadoes. We hope that with people viewing our artwork there will be a change in how people act towards the environment and possibly a decrease in the amount of destruction of extreme weathers such as tornadoes.

Kian, Ryan H

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Our artwork uses data from the average anomaly in degrees Fahrenheit compared to the average arctic ice extent in September. We color coded the temperature data to show the increasing temperature in the arctic in the past 50 years with a blue, yellow, and red thermostat that further the point that the temperature is getting hotter in the Arctic. The glacier that holds both polar bears in different timelines also points out another problem with the warming of the arctic and the glaciers outline is the data for the average extent of glaciers in the arctic in september. Our artwork is trying to show how increased C02 emissions which cause decreasing glacier levels are damaging to both the ecosystem in the arctic and humans all around the world. Our artwork hopes to affect the people that see it to make sure they know that polar bears and the animals who live in the arctic are not the only ones that are affected by our problems but also points out the feedback loop that it created that will damage earth and humanity more than we have ever seen.

Diego, Ben and Herschel

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Our artwork is trying to show the effects of less snowfall. We first started by making a graph on the paper from two different data sets. One of the data sets we found was, the average snowfall covering and also the average number of days unfrozen. The gray that you see in our artwork is supposed to represent the snowfall. The other data we collected is the number of unfrozen days in the US. that is represented as the brown areas. And the brown line going through the snow banks is representing the data from the number of unfrozen days. And towards 2020, you see that there is more brown on top of the gray, which means that there has been less snowfall. When there isn’t snow on the ground, the visible light re-radiates into infrared light. Infrared light gets absorbed by CO2 in the atmosphere, which then warms the climate. Since humans are emitting more and more CO2 in the atmosphere, the climate is warming. Because of the climate warming, it’s harder to have snowfall. You can see that there are dots flowing up to the top, and that is supposed to be showing the carbon dioxide that we are emitting. We need snowfall to reflect the visible light, so then there is less heat being absorbed. What we hope people will take away from our artwork is that we need to be more careful with what we are producing and emitting into the atmosphere, because it can effect a lot of things with the way we live.

Allison and Noa

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In our artwork we are trying to show the consequences of climate change through the increased temperature and precipitation. We blended our two data sets into the piece by making the precipitation data the pattern of our rain, and the surface temperature portrays the ground of our piece. Over the years you can see both data sets increase and the environment worsen. The once shiny farm becomes broken-down, and fields become flooded, wrecking all the crops. We hope while viewing our artwork, people can get the message of how climate change destroys homes and food. We would like them to feel inspired to change their ways by producing less carbon, for a better and less stormy future.

Anna L, Madison and Harmonie

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In our artwork, we are trying to show how global warming and melting ice are causing the sea level to rise, which has led to an increase in flooding. This increase in flooding could be a huge disaster if we don’t act to stop it, so we used the visual of the city being flooded more and more over time to show how in the future, our homes may be flooded because we weren’t able to stop it. 

We included data in our piece of art by using the graph lines as the borders of the water, and the graphs we used show the average sea level and surface temperature. They are connected because the surface temperature causes the sea level to rise, because of thermal expansion and melting ice. 

When people view our artwork, we hope that they think about the immense impact that flooding can have on our world, and how their own home may be affected by flooding, as well as actions, such as reducing emissions through sustainable transportation, that people can take to prevent further increases in flooding.

Doelle and Liam

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Our artwork is trying to show the growing season in the united seasons and where we think the plants are growing well and where they are not growing so well. The healthy plants are represented by tissue paper in green, red and pink. The dead/not so healthy plants are also represented by tissue paper in black, and brown. We also represented frost with blue tissue paper. The frost is showing where the plants can’t grow because it is too cold and essentially is killing them. In the background you see purple tissue paper, brown and dark blue. That is representing the temperature. You can see our data because the line going across the United States is the data about the growing season. Above our image, is frost and where we think it is in the United states. We hope people think about how this affects our food source and how the plants are growing. 

Gigi and Anna E

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Our artwork is trying to convey the urgency of the situation surrounding sea ice sheets in the arctic. In our artwork, you can see polar bears on an ice floe that represents the data for sea ice age makeup and extent. It is made to look like a sheet of sea ice. You can also see a graph with rising CO₂, connected with images of industrial smog and other negative output. When readers put these two things together, they learn how climate change and the greenhouse effect have been a driving force in the faster melting of sea ice in the arctic. You can also see how this negatively affects the polar bears, with the one standing on the ice in the 1980s being healthy, and the modern one left starving for food. Hopefully, after people look at this artwork and watch this screencast, they go away with a newfangled sense of the negative effects of climate change on arctic sea ice and the creatures living there.

Henry, Tom and Jacob K

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Our artwork is trying to show the impact of rising CO2 levels, in both the air and water, on marine life. We wanted to show that as there is more CO2 in the atmosphere, we see some marine life, like corals dying off. Specifically, we decided to include coral bleaching as one of the largest effects of rising CO2 levels in the ocean. We learnt that CO2 bleaches coral because the low pH of the water kills part of the coral. We decided to show our original data set of CO2 levels in the ocean as changes from trees to buildings and factories. We decided to include the global atmospheric CO2 to show correlations between water and atmospheric levels. Our last data set was Chlorophyll anomalies, which we investigated because we were curious about how CO2 might be affecting plant growth in the ocean and how this might affect coral as a result. Wwe decided to represent it as coral, which starts to bleach as CO2 emissions increase. We hope that those that view our artwork will not only realize the urgency of our situation and reconsider their part in helping the earth, but also think more deeply about how the rising CO2 emissions affects all of us. 

Isabella, Indie, Leo T

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Our artwork is showing the total ice coverage in Glacier National Park in height of a glacier print out. Also there is a color scheme on the temperature of the climate. Also the green line is displaying the CO2 level over the time period. Next there are images that are the leading causes of the CO2 levels and melting ice. The data is included in the artwork by the green line that blends in with the art really well is the CO2 levels and the 4 glacier heights display the amount of total glacier coverage in sq miles. The blue to red colors in the top of the page shows a visual of our average temperature rising with blue to red in recent times. What we hope that you will take out when viewing our art work is that the CO2 level is rising dramatically that heats up the earth and heats the oceans melting the ice creating higher water levels and the images of causes to the melting ice you probably contribute to in your day to day life. What are piece shows how the heat changes by fading with oil pastels which shows glacier change.

Luca and Milo

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Our artwork is showing how lobsters have been moving north over time because of warming oceans. To make our artwork we used a graph of ocean heat over time and American Lobster movement. When viewing our artwork you can see that both graphs increase over time. This means that as ocean heat is increasing lobsters are also moving north away from warm southern waters. We used tissue paper to highlight the graph of ocean temperature and show that that graph was representing the ocean by making it look like waves. We used oil pastel to draw our graph on lobster movement over time. The line represents the coast of Maine and how lobsters are moving along the east coast of the U.S to the north. In addition the species of American lobster originally lived south of the coast of Maine but have since traveled north to the coast. We hope you will notice the lobsters below the black line that are representing their movement throughout the coast of Maine. We also included a sun made with oil pastel and watercolor to show that the sun contributes to global warming and is a big part in the process of the greenhouse effect.

Luke and Neil

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The artwork that we made this week is trying to show that the increase in carbon dioxide air pollution everywhere is causing birds all over the united states to have to leave their natural habitats and travel further north to escape the rising temperatures and lack of vegetation. The data included is a chart showing the rise of Carbon dioxide levels in parts per million every year, and another data set showing how far north the birds have been moving every year as the Carbon dioxide levels and temperatures rise. At the top, we have thermometers showing the average temperature from those years, and you can see that it is going up every time. When people see this artwork, we hope they think about how humans caused air and land pollution and the increase in Carbon dioxide levels is impacting everything, not just humans. It is also messing up animals habitats, and the food chain. We also hope that people work to reduce carbon emissions and smoke, because of the vast impact that it has. A way that you can reduce carbon emissions is by walking or carpooling places. 

Nia and Ania

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Our artwork is showing how the changing CO2 levels are also affecting marine life by heating up the water making the species have to migrate to Northern colder waters which is the temperature most marine life want, and go deeper to get cold waters as well. Our artwork shows this by using thermometers to help represent the changing temperatures from 1974 - 2019. We also included a fish moving North and deeper to show that marine species are migrating to colder waters.

We were able to show our data in the art by showing our data in the artwork by including the graphs in the artwork to make it look like the ocean. We also used colors in order to show that the fish are going farther down into darker colder water. On the sides we labeled the x axis to show what the sea surface temperature was from 1974 -2019.

We hope that when people see our artwork they will see that with the species moving there will be a lesser amount of species to fish for in certain areas. With the temperature getting hotter and hotter and the species moving farther north, there won’t be enough fish locally sourced in the U.S.

Zachary and Nicholas

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We think there have been a lot  more cases of Lyme Disease because of how much the climate and temperatures are changing. We think this because we found out that deer ticks are mostly the cause of Lyme Disease and they do not survive in temperatures below freezing. Our artwork is trying to show how as it gets warmer and the climate is changing, the amount of ticks grows and there becomes more cases. We hope that whoever looks at this really thinks about how climate can affect the amount of cases and how as the temperature gets warmer the amount of ticks grows more and more. We showed our data in this artwork by including the two graphs as showing how the cases and temperature increase and decrease. The top one shows the amount of cases per 100,000 people and the bottom one shows the temperature. From the bottom graph we are trying to show how as it gets warmer the ice starts to melt and there becomes more land. From the top graph we are trying to show that as there becomes more cases of ticks and more ticks outside there becomes less people.

Sham and Sofia

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In this piece of art we drew the effects that the rising temperatures have on the world. There will be more CO2, in the atmosphere, the growing seasons will be much different than the average, and more people will begin experiencing pollen allergies. We hope to convey to you, the observer, that this is a growing problem and that we needed to do something about it. These effects will only get worse and have already started. On the right you can observe how there is less CO2 in the atmosphere, less deviation from the growing season, and less pollen in the air. Gradually there will be more for everything, more CO2, more deviation from the average growing season, and more pollen. This all due to heat, and has gone up exponentially in only 20 years. While for now this will only affect us very little, in the amount of time it took to go from a deviation of one or two days from the average growing season, some places in the US have a deviation of nearly a month. Not only will this be affecting us, but it will be affecting the ecosystems that have been built around the growing season average. 

Matt, Ryan C and Tristan

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Our artwork is showing how the earth's temperature is rising and the things that are happening because of the temperature rise. Our art includes smoke stacks and icicles. The smokestacks are representing the record high and record low temperatures being broken every decade. And what the icicles are showing, are the percentage of unfrozen days. Our data spans from 1975, to 2020, and the line going up and the buildings are showing the CO2 levels rising which means the atmosphere temperature will rise, and how the temperature rise is represented in our work is by the line. Our artwork is trying to show how climate change is affecting the seas, and the cities. With sea levels rising, and waves getting larger, the sea can swallow entire cities, and with the change in climate, we can also expect major storms that can wipe out populations. What we hope is that the people who view our work will try to change their CO2 emission actions like walking or taking the train to work or somewhere instead of driving. We want to convey the message that CO2 emissions and global warming are very real, prominent things that are affecting people today. 

Jacob R, Grant, Leo I

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Our artwork is trying to show what climate change is doing to our ecosystem and how it is affecting the growing season. We have three sections because we are trying to show how the growing season is changing over time like how early it is starting and how long it is lasting. The data is included because the trees are the growing season and the birds flying is the temperature. We hope people can see that even if the growing season is longer doesn’t mean it is better especially for the animals because some, like birds, are on schedules but others, like caterpillars, come out when food is there and that makes the animals that are on a schedule be confused and not have food. We want people to feel touched and try to make a change not just because of what we drew but if they can see what is happening to the earth and what changes are occurring. Our ecosystem is really changing and it needs a lot of help. One thing we can do is reduce food waste and compost so we emit less methane which is a strong greenhouse gas.

Antonina and Eva

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