World Climate Stripes

The European Commission's ERA5 Explorer allows you to view historical climate data for cities around the world. Click on the map and you can explore a range of climate statistics showing how the climate has changed at the selected location over the last forty years. The map even generates climate stripes for your selected location.

The Era5 Explorer interactive map itself can show the average yearly precipitation, wind speed or temperature across the whole world. Click on the map and you can then see detailed information on the typical monthly climate at that location, including the typical monthly average, maximum and minimum temperatures from 1981-2010. You can also view data on the average monthly rainfall, the typical percentage of frost days, summer days and tropical nights for each calendar month and data on the average wind speed and wind direction.

The application also generates what it calls 'warming stripes' (or what most people call 'climate stripes') for your chosen location. These stripes are each colored to show how much each year was warmer or colder, when compared to the reference period 1981-2010. The often repeated pattern of blue shades to red shades in these climate stripes are a powerful indicator of global heating.


You can also generate climate stripes for individual countries around the world (and for individual U.S. states) using #ShowYourStripes. Select a region and then a country from the drop-down menu on #ShowYourStripes and you can view and download an image showing how temperatures have risen over the last 100+ years at your selected location.

Global warming stripes are a very powerful way to visualize a complex issue with one simple and easy to understand image. The temperature data used for creating the stripes on #ShowYourStripes comes from the Berkeley Earth temperature dataset and from a number of national meteorological agencies.