In 2018, climatologist Ed Hawkins published the well-known “Warming Stripes”, which simply visualize warming over the last decades in blue-red colors and are often used as a symbol in the climate protection movement.
Prof. Annette Menzel and her team at TU Munich have now further developed this striking visualization method for phenology: In the “Green Warming Stripes” (Green Climate Stripes) one glance is enough to see whether certain phenological events (e.g. beginning of flowering) are manifesting themselves earlier or later than in the reference period: Blue stripes represent relatively cool years with correspondingly later flowering or later leaf development. Green stripes represent comparatively warm years in which flowers, leaves and fruits developed earlier. The darker the shade, the more days the development deviates.
In a simple web based application, you can visualize the “Green Warming Stripes” for different plant species, representing the 10 different “phenological seasons”. For example, hazel flowering marks early spring, and horse chestnut fruit ripening marks full autumn.
