What is the role of data and data visualisation in this moment of climate change?
Environmental and climate changes are deeply complex, time-agnostic, nonlinear and difficult to unwind. The futures that environmental changes point towards are so multiple that they defy only-human tracking or tracing. Data emerges from our human observations, sensors and satellites, computer models replace mental models.
This data about our changing earth is being collected from private and public institutions, by citizens and scientists and citizen scientists, in international and local efforts. As merits the complexity of the subject of the ecosystem, the data is wildly complex and massive. How might we better understand the layers of work behind creating the data? And if we understand it better, does that allow us to embrace the uncertain futures the data predicts?
It is possible that we have all the data we need. It is also possible that we have tried - over and over - to visualise that data. So what is left? What could be done again, differently? What topics and concepts could data visualisation support or express in the field of environmental data and climate change? What mental models have we yet to form? What is difficult to comprehend? What is unfathomable?
Environmental data is visualised in many ways: squiggly lines in research papers, highly interactive websites, artistic representations in gallery shows, the changes to flora and fauna in front of our eyes. Which expression of data fits which ways of knowing? If the data is so wildly complex, is there a way to allow for this complexity to enter into the data expression? Might we experience parts, wholes and webs rather than single, directional sparklines?
Data is abstract and specific. It can almost describe anything, yet a piece of data is deeply rooted to the subject it is meant to quantify, monitor. Thus in order to start engaging with environmental data, climate data, we seek to find a piece of data to hold on to.
This research is about collecting and creating: a) collecting key topics for ourselves and other designers to consider diving in to and b) attempting to create work on ±1 of those key topics.
At the core of the research is an intent to bridge between the disciplines of science, design and art, focused specifically on finding paths for data visualisation designers into the complex space of climate science. In our collection below, we outline a few possible paths. Each could be combined or inform one another but they indicate initial directions, kinds of compass points for whatever work might follow.
We are in the initial phase of moving from overview to focus points. From here, we will choose just one focus point out of the many topics as an initial direction with which we will continue into more research, generating ideas for data representation, and experimenting with some of those ideas.
As we seek to find focus points within the broad topics of climate, data, visualisation, we talked with 12 experts from different fields: data science, climate policy, data visualisation, climate modeling, psychology of climate change, adaptation, futurists and scenario planners.
In parallel with the expert interviews, we read papers, books and listened to talks on climate data, data visualisation and climate science. Those references are collected here and their connections through keywords are visualised at right and below.
We look for most used keywords, and filter the visualisation down to those highly frequent.
Each colored dot is a paper, project or article we've collected. They are linked by shared keywords (white dots).