Climate spiral

Imagine a giant, colorful drawing that shows how warm or cold our Earth has been, year after year. That's a climate spiral! It starts in the middle when it was cooler and then spirals outwards as the Earth gets warmer.

It's like a long, colorful timeline that helps us see how our planet's temperature is changing. It’s a super cool way to understand global warming without needing to be a scientist!

A clever scientist named Ed Hawkins, who lives in Britain, created the very first climate spiral in 2016. He wanted to show everyone, even kids, how our planet's temperature has been going up since 1850. He used special computer magic to make the data look like a beautiful, growing spiral. It’s like he painted a picture of Earth’s temperature story for all of us to see and learn from.

This spiral is important because it shows us if our planet is getting hotter. When the spiral gets bigger and bigger, it means the Earth is warming up. This can cause big changes, like ice melting and weather getting a bit wild. By looking at the spiral, we can understand these changes better and think about how we can help keep our Earth healthy and happy for everyone.

The climate spiral grows by adding a little bit of information for each year. It tracks the average temperature of the whole world. If a year is warmer than usual, the spiral moves a little bit outwards. If it's cooler, it moves inwards. Over many, many years, all these small movements create the beautiful, spiraling shape that shows us the big picture of our changing climate.