How a striking visualization reveals the rapid warming of our planet and why it’s time to act

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Mar 07, 2025

A striking new visualization created by climate scientist Zeke Hausfather unfolds like a blooming flower, with colors transitioning from blue to red. While it may appear aesthetically pleasing, it reveals an alarming view of a rapidly warming planet.

This graphic illustrates the rise in global daily temperatures from 1940 to the end of 2024, in contrast to the period before humans began burning large quantities of fossil fuels, which significantly contribute to global warming.

The image paints a stark picture. As the data expands outward, the colors intensify in red, symbolizing the increasing global temperatures.

According to Hausfather, who leads climate research at Stripe and is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, effective visualizations like this can help make climate change "more immediate and easier to grasp."

By tracking global temperature changes over the last 85 years, it becomes "clear how quickly the planet has warmed in recent decades, and how alarmingly hot both 2023 and 2024 were in comparison to previous years," Hausfather explained in an interview with CNN.

The previous year was the hottest on record, surpassing a record set just the year before. It also marked the first year to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a crucial climate threshold.

Scientists have been working to explain the intense heat of recent years. While the burning of fossil fuels and the natural climate pattern El Niño have played significant roles, these factors alone don't fully account for the unusually rapid increase in temperatures.

What is clear, however, is that every small increase in global temperatures will result in more severe consequences for both humans and ecosystems, including more frequent and intense fires, storms, and floods.

Hausfather emphasized that "global warming has been accelerating in recent years and poses a serious threat to our way of life and the natural world, unless we take immediate action to reduce emissions."