Adapted Tree Rings

A thing some crafters are doing (including Daughter Number Number Three-Point-One) is knitting or crocheting a temperature blanket, where each row is a different color, representing the day's temperature. DN3.1's blanket, which uses reds and blues, is attractive but sort of alarming as it gets longer. I can't help thinking about what a blanket from some year in the past would have looked like.

Here's something that makes that makes my discomfort clearer: a tree-ring graphic, created by a German entity called Landesforsten Rheinland-Pfalz (Facebook post), that uses annual average temperature data over the past 140 years:

That's a lot of red in almost all of the recent rings. Not a big surprise, but this visual puts a bite in the bark.

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Via the Twitter account of University of Reading climate scientist Ed Hawkins.