A plot of an absolute quantity like this should really have a zigzag line at the bottom of the y-axis indicating that it does not start at zero. Or else, it should start at zero and / or be logarithmic.
I understand that for line graphs, where you are looking at variations rather than absolutes, this is acceptable, but in this case.
- This is an interactive graph, at least give us the option of starting at zero.
- CO2 went from 280 ppm to 420 ppm, it is significant enough to see the variations even on an absolute scale.
- Don't make the bottom line (x axis) stand out as it does now, especially considering that the y axis doesn't stand out.
Why? I think there's some intuitive idea that something is being hidden or there's cheating in the presentation, but that doesn't have to be the case if the purpose of the plot is to illustrate relative change (and the y axis is clearly labeled).
The counter-argument is that it makes it look like CO2 has 10x'd instead of doubling, but since those values aren't calibrated in units that we can intuitively understand, it's not obviously the correct choice to start at 0.
That said I do feel like when people do that it is not a great practice.
What you probably meant is that 33% of the CO2 in the atmosphere is "man-made".
For financials or percentages, shifting the baseline from 0 can be misleading. For ppm I think it is a good thing.
What we need is a bright horizontal line that says ">50% chance your society collapses in the lifetime of your children", one that says ">50% chance your society collapses in your lifetime", and one that says ">50% chance your species does not survive 100 years." To properly frame the stakes and the significance of the numbers.
That's not far from the default for all of us anyway, isn't it?
Soviet Union fell apart in my lifetime; my parents were born during and just before WW2, got to see the Winds of Change.
I'm not sure about my grandparents, other than one grandmother's funeral anecdote being that she wandered off unsupervised as an infant, which had the people looking after her scared she had been eaten by a tiger because this was in a military camp in the British Raj.
No Ottoman empire, no Austro-Hungarians, and the borders of the Germany I moved to no longer go as far as what's now Калининград.
if anything, for normies, temperature is far less well understood than concentration, especially WRT zero.
Either way, it should never be labeled "bad practice", as it was done here.
We didn't even get oxygen until 2.4 billion years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
Offsetting zero is an annoying practice.
"The co2 level is N standard deviations out of the ordinary compared to preindustrial times" feels more useful here, but reading that requires basic statistics (which general audiences probably lacks).
Would be cool to see that value on the graph, also a median/average/max preindustrial value.
It would have much more impact and be less misleading if they started at 0.
Not starting at 0 both lets people dismiss the graph because they used the stupid not-starting-at-zero trick, and it hides the fact that CO2 concentration has increased by 50% which is insane!
Do you have any evidence to back up this statement?
Is there a certain type of evidence that would placate your very specifically worded and anti-intellectually framed question?
I doubt climate deniers are specially aware of chart layout. Most have very little scientific education, unsurprisingly. But go ahead and prove me wrong.
> your very specifically worded and anti-intellectually framed question
Random insults now. Nice.