[mrow84]

In what way are you trying to interpret the area, or indeed the velocity (indeed the angular velocity is constant)? As I understand it, the intent of the visualisation is simply to make clear the temperature (anomaly) trend, which is encoded in the radius - that is all you need to consider to understand what is being shown.

Also, the fact that it uses anomalies isn't of much consequence, given that there is widespread understanding of "normal" temperatures, to which the anomalies can be compared - this is unlike many situations where readers might not have an understanding of usual absolute values, making the plotting of differences prone to being misleading. According to [0] the anomaly difference for 1890-1945 is 0.44 K, whereas for 1880-2021 it is 1.01 K, so presumably someone who was concerned by the former would be (approximately) doubly concerned by the latter.

[0] https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/

[veltas]

Angular velocity is not velocity, the velocity increases because the angular velocity was remaining constant as the radius increased.

It's encoded in the radius, but the area is visually more impactful - to me anyway - until the end when it's shown from the side, which was good.

The point about comparing up to 1945 is that since the scale is arbitrary I can have it end at the same radius.

[mrow84]

I didn't suggest that angular velocity is the same as linear velocity, I asked how you were interpreting the area and velocity, and parenthetically observed that the angular velocity was constant. You say that the area is impactful - what do you understand it as meaning?

The scale is not arbitrary, it covers the range of anomalies over the chosen period, in units of temperature change in degrees Celsius, and is labelled as such, with the anomaly reference period described in the text. If you were to use absolute values then the scale would similarly cover the range of absolute values over the chosen period - there is no "unbiased" choice of data range, except perhaps that which covers all of the data in question, which this does.

As I noted, the impact of the anomalies is with reference to "normal" temperatures - it is relatively easy for anyone to see that 1 C (/K) is quite a large temperature increase, relative to "normal" temperatures. Surely you can agree that if the largest anomaly shown was 0.01 C then the graph would have far less impact, and if it was 100 C then the graph would have far more impact?