BEST PRACTICES IN VISUALIZATION: THE CASE OF COMMON CLIMATE CHANGE IMAGES

Climate change is naturally communicated visually. The temporal and spatial scales over which climate change occurs, the array of systems, both human and natural, impacted by climate change, and the complex nature of climate modeling all lend themselves more easily to communication via visual means. While climate scholars make every effort to illustrate the causes, known effects, projected future conditions of climate change, the general public still holds a limited understanding of climate change and its impacts. In this study, we investigated the efficacy of climate change visualizations. Sixty-one participants viewed climate change images on an eye-tracker and answered questions about the images. Half of the participants viewed images from the Vital Climate Graphics set that is based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The other half of the participants viewed equivalent images that were redesigned based on graphic design and visual communication principles. We report here on three graphical images: the “hockey stick” curve, the GDP reduction curve, and the temperature-CO₂ concentration curve. Eye tracking results suggest that the original Vital Climate Graphics images induce less focused attention than revised images. On the Vital Climate Graphics images, this is indicated by a greater number of overall fixations and separate views between features as well as a lack of attention to necessary elements such as legends. Participants also answered questions related to the images more accurately when presented with the revised images. Taken together, these data suggest that careful attention to principles of visual communication in design of climate change graphics could be a key step to combating climate change illiteracy.