Stacked line charts are so sizzling proper now!
There have been a lot of local weather change articles not too long ago, and lots of characteristic distinctive stacked line charts that summarize knowledge over many a long time. Right here’s an instance from the Climate Reanalyzer that reveals how sea temperatures over the past year-and-a-half have been properly above common [1]:
And right here’s the same chart from Dr. Zachary Labe’s site exhibiting the extent of Antarctic Sea ice over the past 40+ years [2]:
These charts have grow to be a preferred selection for infographics, corresponding to in this article, however this reputation is a bit shocking [3]. Because of the issue in following particular person strains by way of these dense, tangled shows, they’re typically shunned and disparaged as “spaghetti” plots.
However there’s a secret to utilizing spaghetti plots efficiently. You need to emphasize one or two strains in opposition to a diminished background of all the opposite strains. This technique permits you to place the chosen strains inside an general context. Do they symbolize regular outcomes or are they outliers? Are the outcomes actually good or actually unhealthy? By superimposing them on a background pattern, the story can write itself.
On this Fast Success Information Science undertaking, we’re going to provide a facsimile of the earlier Antarctic Sea Ice chart with the Plotly Specific graphing library. With this code instance, you need to be capable to generate comparable plots on your personal datasets.
For knowledge we’ll use a complete public dataset compiled by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, part of the Cooperative Institute for Analysis in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) on the College of Colorado, Boulder [4]. This dataset makes use of satellite tv for pc imagery to trace and monitor modifications in polar sea ice, such because the “halo” of ice round Antarctica.
