The NASA Climate Spiral is a powerful visual representation of global temperature changes over the past 140+ years. The data used to create this visualization comes from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP v4), which is a comprehensive estimate of global surface temperature change maintained by NASA. As the spiral rotates, each year’s temperature anomaly is plotted, with cooler-than-average temperatures shown in blue tones and warmer-than-average temperatures shown in red/orange tones. The spiral pattern vividly illustrates the overall warming trend, with the most recent years clustered in the warmer, reddish end of the spectrum. This striking visual effectively communicates the scale and pace of global temperature rise over the modern instrumental record. It serves as a powerful tool for understanding and communicating the reality of human-caused climate change to a wide audience.
The NASA Climate Spiral provides an accessible and impactful way to convey the scientific evidence of global warming, which is critical for informing public discourse and policy decisions around addressing the challenges of climate change.