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Red Lines & Hockey Sticks Red Lines & Hockey Sticks A discourse analysis of the IPCC’s visual culture and climate science (mis)communication Thomas Henderson Dawson Department of ALM Theses within Digital Humanities Master’s thesis (two years), 30 credits, 2021, no. 5 Author Thomas Henderson Dawson Title Red Lines & Hockey Sticks: A discourse analysis of the IPCC’s visual culture and climate science (mis)communication. Supervisor Matts Lindström Abstract Within the climate science research community there exists an overwhelming consensus on the question of climate change. The scientific literature supports the broad conclusion that the Earth’s climate is changing, that this change is driven by human factors (anthropogenic), and that the environmental consequences could be severe. While a strong consensus exists in the climate science community, this is not reflected in the wider public or among poli- cymakers, where sceptical attitudes towards anthropogenic climate change is much more prevalent. This discrep- ancy in the perception of the urgency of the problem of climate change is an alarming trend and likely a result of a failure of science communication, which is the topic of this thesis. This paper analyses the visual culture of climate change, with specific focus on the data visualisations com- prised within the IPCC assessment reports. The visual aspects of the reports were chosen because of the prioriti- sation images often receive within scientific communication and for their quality as immutable mobiles that can transition between different media more easily than text. The IPCC is the central institutional authority in the climate science visual discourse, and its assessment reports, therefore, are the site of this discourse analysis. The analysis tracks the development and variations in the IPCC’s visual culture, investigates in detail the use of colour and the visual form of the “Hockey Stick” graph. This work is undertaken to better understand the state of the art of climate science data visualisation, in an effort to suggest the best way forward to bridge the knowledge gap between the scientific community and the public on this important issue. The thesis concludes that a greater em- phasis on the information aesthetics of their data visualisations could benefit the IPCC’s pedagogical reach, but that it may also be argued that it is not the IPCC’s role in climate change discourse to produce the most visually persuasive images. That they exist as a tone-setting institution that provides authority to entities that are better geared towards wider communication, such as journalism and activism. Key words Climate Change, IPCC, Data Visualisation, Information Aesthetics, Science Communication. 2 Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………7 Purpose Statement and Research Questions…………………………...……..10 Previous Research…………………………………………………………….11 Theory & Method…………………………………………………………….15 Method………………………………………………………………………..16 Theory………………………………………………………………………...18 Materials………………………………………………………………………23 Relevance and Topicality……………………………………………………..24 Development and Variation in IPCC Data Visualisation………..25 First Assessment Report (1990)………………………………………………26 Supplementary Report (1992)………………………………………………...29 Second Assessment Report (1994)……………………………………………29 Third Assessment Report (2001)……………………………………………...32 Fourth Assessment Report (2007)…………………………………………….34 Fifth Assessment Report (2014)………………………………………………36 A note on two-dimensional globe projections………………………………...37 Recurring Colours: Prominence of the Colour Red……………..38 History and cultural associations……………………………………………...39 Infographics…………………………………………………………………...40 In (the English) language……………………………………………………..41 Colour in IPCC reports………………………………………………………..42 Colour in non-IPCC climate visualisations…………………………………...47 Recurring Forms: The “Hockey Stick” Graph & Upward Exponentials………………………………………………………...49 Discussion and Conclusions………………………………………..59 Conclusions…………………………………………………………………...66 Bibliography………………………………………………………..67 Literature……………………………………………………………………...67 Appendix……………………………………………………………………...70 3 Table of Figures Figure 1. IPCC, 1990, Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific Assessment, Cam- bridge University Press, Cambridge, p.xxii. ……………………………….27 Figure 2. IPCC, 1990, Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific Assessment, Cam- bridge University Press, Cambridge, p.xiv. ……………………………….28 Figure 3. IPCC, 1990, Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific Assessment, Cam- bridge University Press, Cambridge, Front Cover. ………………………..29 Figure 4. IPCC, 1992, Climate Change 1992: The Supplementary Report to The IPCC Scientific Assessment, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Front Cover. ……………………………………………………………………...29 Figure 5. IPCC, 1994, Climate Change 1994: Radiative Forcing of Climate Change and An Evaluation of the IPCC IS92 Emission Scenarios, Cambridge Univer- sity Press, Cambridge, Front Cover. ………………………………………30 Figure 6. IPCC, 1994, Climate Change 1994: Radiative Forcing of Climate Change and An Evaluation of the IPCC IS92 Emission Scenarios, Cambridge Univer- sity Press, Cambridge, p.10. ………………………………………………30 Figure 7. IPCC, 1994, Climate Change 1994: Radiative Forcing of Climate Change and An Evaluation of the IPCC IS92 Emission Scenarios, Cambridge Univer- sity Press, Cambridge, p.37. ………………………………………………31 Figure 8. IPCC, 2001, Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report, Cambridge Univer- sity Press, Cambridge, Front Cover. ……………………………………....32 Figure 9. IPCC, 2014, Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report, IPCC, Geneva, Front Cover. ……………………………………………………………….32 Figure 10. IPCC, 2001, Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report, Cambridge Uni- versity Press, Cambridge, p.34. ……………………………………………33 Figure 11. IPCC, 2007, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report, Cambridge Uni- versity Press, Cambridge, Front Cover. ……………………………………34 Figure 12. IPCC, 2007, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report, Cambridge Uni- versity Press, Cambridge, p.6. ……………………………………………..35 Figure 13. IPCC, 2007, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report, Cambridge Uni- versity Press, Cambridge, p.9. ……………………………………………..36 Figure 14. Harris, J. 2016, Why all world maps are wrong, Vox/Youtube, viewed 30 May 2021, < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIID5FDi2JQ&ab_ channel=VoxVoxVerified>. …………………………………………….…37 Figure 15. Greenbaum, H. and Rubenstein, D. 2011, The Stop Sign Wasn’t Always Red, The New York Times Magazine, <https://www.ny- times.com/2011/12/11/magazine/stop-sign.html>. ………………………..40 4 Figure 16. Health and Safety Executive, 2021, No access for unauthorised persons, HSE, viewed 30 May 2021, <https://www.hse.gov.uk/work- placetransport/safetysigns/prohibitoryunauthorised.htm>. ………………..40 Figure 17. Woolley, T. 2020, Coronavirus: Why the maths behind ‘COVID alert levels’ makes no sense, The Conversation, viewed 30 May 2021, <https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-why-the-maths-behind-covid- alert-levels-makes-no-sense-138634>. ……………………………………40 Figure 18. Wikipedia, 2021, Homeland Security Advisory System color chart, Wiki- media Commons, viewed 30 May 2021, <https://en.wikipe- dia.org/wiki/Homeland_Security_Advisory_System#/media/File:Hsas- chart_with_header.svg>. …………………………………………………..40 Figure 19. IPCC, 2007, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report, Cambridge Uni- versity Press, Cambridge, p.9. ……………………………………………..42 Figure 20. IPCC, 2001, Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report, Cambridge Uni- versity Press, Cambridge, p.7. ……………………………………………..43 Figure 21. IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report, IPCC, Geneva, p.11. ………………………………………………………………………..43 Figure 22. IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report, IPCC, Geneva, p.23. ………………………………………………………………………..44 Figure 23. IPCC, 2001, Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report, Cambridge Uni- versity Press, Cambridge, p.17. ……………………………………………45 Figure 24. IPCC, 2007, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report, Cambridge Uni- versity Press, Cambridge, p.36. ……………………………………………45 Figure 25. IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report, IPCC, Geneva, p.21. ………………………………………………………………………..45 Figure 26. Bittermann, K. 2013, PAGES 2k Reconstruction, Wikimedia Commons, viewed 30 May 2021, <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:T_comp_ 61-90.pdf>. ………………………………………………………………...46 Figure 27. BBC 2019, How years compare with the 20th Century average, BBC News, viewed 30 May 2021, <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environ- ment-46384067>. ………………………………………………………….47 Figure 28. The Economist 2020, Week in Charts: The business of climate change, The Economist, viewed 30 May 2021, <https://www.economist.com/graphic- detail/2020/09/18/the-business-of-climate-change>. ……….......................48 Figure 29. Hawkins, E. 2018, Warming Lines, Wikimedia Commons, viewed 30 May 2021, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warming_stripes#/me- dia/File:20181204_Warming_stripes_(global,_WMO,_1850-2018)_- _Climate_Lab_Book_(Ed_Hawkins).png>. ………………………………49 Figure 30. Henson, B. 2020, Sir John Houghton, Climate Scientist and Founding IPCC Editor, Dies at 88, The Weather Channel, viewed 30 May 2021, 5 <https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2020-04-16-climate-scientist- founding-ipcc-editor-sir-john-houghton-dies>. …………………………...50 Figure 31. Acklam, P. J. 2007, The natural exponential function y = ex, Wikimedia Commons, viewed 30 May 2021, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponen- tial_function#/media/File:Exp.svg>. ………………………………………51 Figure 32. Kinnard, C., Zdanowicz, C., Fisher, D. et al. 2011, “Reconstructed changes in Arctic sea ice over the past 1,450 years”. Nature, 479, p.511. ……………………………………………………………………………..54
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