A new stripe has been added to the University of Reading’s climate stripes graphic. And the message remains the same.
As a club, we helped to launch our local university's #ShowYourStripes campaign in the summer and, working in partnership with the University of Reading, we launched new home and away kits which incorporated the ‘climate stripes’ design - an infographic which demonstrates the way that the world is warming.
In detail, the stripes represent the average annual global temperature since 1850, using reds for hotter years and blues for cooler years - and they are widely recognised as a universal and simple illustration helping everyone visualise how temperatures have risen dramatically due to climate change.
And using the Met Office global temperature dataset, an additional line has now been added to the striking graphic to indicate a significant rise in warming in temperature in 2022. In Reading and Berkshire, 2022 was the warmest year on record - a trend also mirrored in the data for the UK overall. So were an extra stripe to be added to the club's shirts mid-season for 2022, it would be the darkest red on there!
Professor Ed Hawkins who invented the stripes graphic, said “The data from 2022 is stark, however you look at it. Whether you view the figures in their raw form, or look at the data as another red line added to the climate stripes, the message is clear. Excess heat is building up across the planet at a rate unprecedented in the history of humanity. The latest coloured stripe added to the global warming stripes image is the second-darkest red, but is very close to being in the darkest red category."
Besides featuring on our home and away shirts this season, the stripes have been shared on social media by the likes of the United Nations, on the cover of a new book by Greta Thunberg, on the main stages at Glastonbury and Reading Festival and at 2021’s London Fashion Week.
