Interpretation
This heat map encodes Earth's average surface temperature data in Fahrenheit, over the years 1755-2014. Each row in the heat map encodes data
for a month and each column in the heat map encodes data for a year. The color encodes the temperature value. Darker colors indicate high temperatures and lighter colors
indicate low temperatures. Hover over each tiny cell to see the exact details.
Data and Processing
GlobalTemperatures.csv data set is used for creating this heat map. Heat map represents Earth's surface temperature variations over the years 1755 to 2015.
The original data set had data from the years 1743-2015. But data was missing for some months beyond
1755. I filtered out the years beyond 1755 using Tableau. A calculated field called 'Temperature in Fahrenheit'
was added using Tableau calculated field, to convert temperature in degree celsius to fahrenheit. The calculation was 'Average Temperature * 1.8 +32'.
The final data size of the data set was 344 KB.
Discussion
From the heat map, we can see that for every month, the color in each row is getting darker as it advances towards the year 2010.
This indicates that there has been a slow, but notable increase in Earth's surface temperature over the past century.
For detailed analysis, let's consider the month of March. There can be seen outliers like year 1813 with temperature 34.87°F. Now move towards
the end of the row in March. The temperatures are all above 40 °F. This is a clear indication of increasing hot weather and apparent
climate changes.
This conclusion also calls for the awareness, that world needs, about the climate changes and global warming. If the temperature keeps on increasing at this rate,
this is eventually going to have strong adverse effects on the future generations. Some of the effects can be seen as:
1. Melting of the ice and increase in sea levels
2. Rising temperatures can affect wildlife and their habitats
3. More severe drought, increasing the risk of wildfires, losing crops, and drinking water shortages
These are just a few points. Some important articles about climate changes and global warming can be found below:
Effects of global warming - National Geographic
Effects of Global Warming - livescience
Global Climate change - NASA
Climate change news: phys.org