You may already be familiar with the KNMI climate barcode: a collection of bars that clearly shows that the Netherlands is slowly warming up. The KNMI has now come up with an alternative way to make this warming clear: the climate spiral.
Both the climate barcode and the climate spiral were invented by climate scientist Ed Hawkins. Although the barcode is a lot more popular than the climate spiral, the spiral is especially more suitable as an animation and therefore a moving alternative. The spiral turns around every year. The warmer the year, the bigger the circle. Every year has its own color. So you can see from the color gradient and the larger circles that the Netherlands has indeed been warming up in recent years.
Average annual temperature
The climate spiral works slightly differently than the barcode. For example, the climate spiral focuses mainly on showing the average temperature over 12 months. For this purpose, the KNMI (again) looks at the measurements in De Bilt. The average temperature is then calculated by looking at 12 months’ worth of values, adding them together and dividing that number by 12 again. This value is then placed with the last counting month. So for the value of December 1901, the values from January 1901 to December 1901 were taken into account. For the following calculations, this is shifted by one month each time. Finally, the KNMI draws lines between the different values. Because the Earth is slowly warming, we will eventually see a kind of spiral shape.
Global warming of the Netherlands
You may think that the climate spiral is not particularly clear: the data from several years is on top of each other, making it somewhat difficult to point to individual years. However, this may be precisely the power of the climate spiral: the climate spiral clearly shows deviations from the average, and how this average is slowly shifting. And although the climate spiral stops at the year 2023, the KNMI has already developed a number of climate scenarios that can paint a picture of the future. In the highest climate scenario, the average annual temperature in De Bilt will rise to 12.1 degrees by around 2050. Around 2100, the average annual temperature would have risen to 14.9 degrees. If this scenario becomes reality, we will need a new climate spiral: the current one can only reflect increases of up to 13 degrees.
Yet there is also hope for the future. In the lowest scenario, the annual temperature will rise by another 0.9 degrees, after which the annual temperature will continue to fluctuate around 11.4 degrees. Although the climate spiral may present a depressive picture, the warming of the Netherlands can still be dampened. However, this low scenario assumes that humans will not only stop emitting CO2, but will also remove CO2 from the air on a large scale. If we want to keep the trend within the framework, we will have to work hard.
