TELLING THE STORY WITH GRAPHICS
People relate to massive numbers when you give them some context. With this in mind, Chop Shop Studio produced several infographics to help Climate Central illustrate their point. Starting with an interactive Ice Map that allowed users to email an animated graphic to a friend which revealed how deep the Greenland ice loss would be if dumped on their own state. For instance, an estimated annual loss of 177 billion metric tons of ice from Greenland over the period 2004-2007 when converted to a snowfall equivalent would translate to a whopping 30' falling on the state of Alabama.
The animation in the recipient’s email would begin with their own state, but the user could also select from any of the rest of the 49 to see the relative differences.
Static Graphics (below)
Illustrating Arctic ice loss in a familiar way. From the danger of a skater careening down a thinning ice sheet to the shedding of state-sized volumes of 3' sheets of ice.
Live Links
Go to climatecentral.org to find out more on each: Thin Ice Autumn and Winter, Arctic Sea Ice for Autumn and Winter, Shedding Ice Faster and Ice Loss for Alaska & Greenland.
Changes in fall Arctic sea ice….
and those changes in Winter.
Arctic Ice depth levels in Autumn…
and levels in Winter.
Comparative rates of ice shedding in Greenland.
Volume of ice lost would equal a sheet 3' thick covering 9 states for AK…
and would cover 14 states for Greenland..