Ed Hawkins (climatologist)

Edward Hawkins MBE^[4] (born 1977)^[3] is a British climate scientist who is Professor of climate science at the University of Reading,^[1] principal research scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), editor of Climate Lab Book blog^[5] and lead scientist for the Weather Rescue citizen science project.^[6][7] He is known for his data visualizations of climate change for the general public such as warming stripes^[8] and climate spirals.^[9][10][11]

Ed Hawkins MBE
Ed Hawkins speaking at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris
Born	Edward Hawkins February 1977 (age 47)^[3]
Nationality	British
Alma mater	University of Nottingham (PhD)
Known for	Warming stripes Climate spirals
Awards	Kavli Medal (2018) MBE (2019)
Scientific career
Fields	Climate variability Climate predictability Climate change Arctic Astrophysics Data and information visualization^[1]
Institutions	University of Reading National Centre for Atmospheric Science
Thesis	Galaxy clustering in large redshift surveys (2003)
Doctoral advisor	Steve Maddox^[2]
Website	www.met.reading.ac.uk/~ed

Education

Hawkins was educated at the University of Nottingham where he was awarded a PhD in astrophysics in 2003 for research supervised by Steve Maddox that investigated galaxy clustering in large redshift surveys.^[2]

Career and research

After his PhD, Hawkins served as a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) advanced research fellow in the department of meteorology at the University of Reading from 2005 to 2013.^[12]

 

One of Hawkins' early warming stripes graphics shows global warming from 1850 (left side of graphic) to 2018 (right side of graphic).^[13] Being a "minimalist graphic stripped (of) unnecessary clutter",^[14] warming stripes portray observed global warming with blue stripes (cooler years) progressing to predominantly red stripes (warmer years).

 

Climate spiral shows global warming since 1850 as an ever-widening coloured spiral

As of 2023^[update] Hawkins is a professor of climate science at the University of Reading,^[15] where he serves as academic lead for public engagement and is affiliated with the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS).^[16] He is a lead for Weather Rescue and Rainfall Rescue, citizen science projects in which volunteers transcribe data from historical meteorological and rainfall records for digital analysis.^[17][18]

Hawkins was a contributing author for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (2014)^[19] and was a lead author for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report in 2021.^[20]

On 9 May 2016, Hawkins published his climate spiral data visualization graphic,^[21] which was widely reported as having gone viral.^[11][22][23] The climate spiral was widely praised, Jason Samenow writing in The Washington Post that the spiral graph was "the most compelling global warming visualization ever made".^[24]

On 22 May 2018, Hawkins published his warming stripes data visualization graphic,^[25] which has been used by meteorologists in Climate Central's annual #MetsUnite campaign to raise public awareness of global warming during broadcasts on the summer solstice.^[26] Hawkins' similar #ShowYourStripes initiative, in which the public could freely download and share graphics customized to specific countries or localities, was launched on 17 June 2019.^[26] The warming stripes graphic is used in the logo of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis from 2019 onwards.^[27]

Honours and awards

Hawkins' climate spiral design was on the shortlist for the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards 2016,^[28] the design having been featured in the opening ceremony of the August 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.^[29]

Hawkins was awarded the Royal Meteorological Society’s Climate Science Communication Prize in 2017.^[20]

In 2018, Hawkins was awarded the Kavli Medal by the Royal Society "for significant contributions to understanding and quantifying natural climate variability and long-term climate change, and for actively communicating climate science and its various implications with broad audiences".^[20]

In July 2019, Hawkins was included in the Climate Home News list of ten climate influencers.^[30]

Hawkins was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours "For services to Climate Science and to Science Communication".^[4]

In June 2021, Hawkins was named in The Sunday Times "Green Power List" which profiled twenty environmentalists in the UK who are "minds engaging with the world’s biggest problem".^[31]

Selected publications

According to Google Scholar^[1][32][33] his most highly cited publications include:

• The Potential to Narrow Uncertainty in Regional Climate Predictions^[34]
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: correlation functions, peculiar velocities and the matter density of the Universe^[35]
• Decadal Prediction: Can It Be Skillful?^[36]
• Global risk of deadly heat^[37]

References

1. Ed Hawkins publications indexed by Google Scholar  
2. Hawkins, Ed (2003). Galaxy clustering in large redshift surveys. nottingham.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Nottingham. OCLC 1365479150. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.272578.
3. Anon (2013). . gov.uk. London: Companies House. Archived from the original on 30 January 2023.
4. "No. 62866". The London Gazette (Supplement). 28 December 2019. p. N18. from the original on 28 December 2019.
5. Hawkins, Ed (2022). "Climate Lab Book: Open Climate Science". climate-lab-book.ac.uk.
6. Andrew M. Lorrey; Petra R. Pearce; Rob Allan; et al. (June 2022). "Meteorological data rescue: Citizen science lessons learned from Southern Weather Discovery". Patterns. 3 (6): 100495. doi:10.1016/J.PATTER.2022.100495. ISSN 2666-3899. Wikidata Q114305499.
7. Ed Hawkins; Rowan Sutton (11 April 2010). "The potential to narrow uncertainty in projections of regional precipitation change". Climate Dynamics. 37 (1–2): 407–418. doi:10.1007/S00382-010-0810-6. ISSN 0930-7575. Wikidata Q58388456.
8. Anon (2023). . reading.ac.uk. University of Reading. Archived from the original on 28 January 2023.
9. Harvey, Chelsea (28 July 2016). "Scientists have found a perfect illustration of how the climate is spiraling 'out of control'". The Washington Post. from the original on 11 July 2019.
10. Kahn, Brian (25 May 2018). "This Climate Visualization Belongs in a Damn Museum". Gizmodo. from the original on 19 June 2019.
11. Staff, Science AF (25 May 2018). "This Has Got to Be One of The Most Beautiful And Powerful Climate Change Visuals We've Ever Seen". Science Alert. from the original on 28 June 2019.
12. "Ed Hawkins". from the original on 27 August 2019.
13. Hawkins, Ed (4 December 2018). "2018 visualisation update / Warming stripes for 1850-2018 using the WMO annual global temperature dataset". Climate Lab Book. from the original on 17 April 2019. ().
14. Kahn, Brian (17 June 2019). "This Striking Climate Change Visualization Is Now Customizable for Any Place on Earth". Gizmodo. from the original on 26 June 2019.
15. "Professor Ed Hawkins". University of Reading. from the original on 5 August 2019. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
16. "Professor Ed Hawkins, Professor, NCAS Climate". University of Reading. from the original on 26 August 2019.
17. Johnson, Scott K. (22 March 2019). "You can help "rescue" weather data from the 1860s". Ars Technica. from the original on 9 May 2019. (re Weather Rescue)
18. Harvey, Fiona (26 March 2020). "Call for isolated Britons to help digitise historical rainfall data". The Guardian. from the original on 17 April 2020. (Re Rainfall Rescue)
19. "WG1AR5_TS_FINAL / TS Technical Summary / Contributing Authors" (PDF). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (PDF) from the original on 3 August 2019. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
20. "Our changing climate: learning from the past to inform future choices / Prize lecture". London: Royal Society. 30 April 2019. from the original on 14 May 2019. Hawkins described his spiral graph and warming stripes in his Kavli prize lecture (video embedded in reference).
21. Hawkins, Ed (9 May 2016). "Spiralling global temperatures". Climate Lab Book. from the original on 16 August 2019.
22. Mooney, Chris (11 May 2019). "This scientist just changed how we think about climate change with one GIF". The Washington Post. from the original on 6 February 2019.
23. Meduna, Veronika (17 September 2018). "The climate visualisations that leave no room for doubt or denial". The Spinoff. New Zealand. from the original on 17 May 2019.
24. Samenow, Jason (10 May 2016). "Unraveling spiral: The most compelling global warming visualization ever made". The Washington Post. from the original on 22 February 2019.
25. Hawkins, Ed (22 May 2018). "Warming stripes". Climate Lab Book. UK. from the original on 26 May 2018.
26. Macdonald, Ted (25 June 2019). "TV meteorologists kicked off the summer by talking about climate change / #MetsUnite and #ShowYourStripes campaign highlighted the importance of climate communication". Media Matters. from the original on 26 June 2019.
27. "United States House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis / About". climatecrisis.house.gov. United States House of Representatives. 2019. from the original on 2 April 2019. Crediting Shawna Faison and House Creative Services.
28. "Climate spirals". informationisbeautifulawards.com. KANTAR Information is Beautiful. October 2016. from the original on 23 August 2019.
29. Irfan, Umair (30 May 2019). "Why this climate change data is on flip-flops, leggings, and cars / Warming stripes keep showing up on clothes and crafts". Vox. from the original on 24 June 2019.
30. Sauer, Natalie (16 July 2019). "Non-Green MEPs largely ignore climate on Twitter". Climate Home News (climatechangenews.com). from the original on 31 August 2019.
31. Spencer, Ben (14 June 2021). "The Carbon Brief: Daily Briefing / Green power list 2021: the UK's top 20 environmentalists". The Sunday Times. from the original on 22 June 2021.
32. Ed Hawkins publications from Europe PubMed Central
33. Ed Hawkins publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
34. Ed Hawkins; Rowan Sutton (August 2009). "The Potential to Narrow Uncertainty in Regional Climate Predictions". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 90 (8): 1095–1108. doi:10.1175/2009BAMS2607.1. ISSN 0003-0007. Wikidata Q58388472.
35. E. Hawkins; S. Maddox; S. Cole; et al. (21 November 2003). "The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: correlation functions, peculiar velocities and the matter density of the Universe". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 346 (1): 78–96. arXiv:astro-ph/0212375. Bibcode:2003MNRAS.346...78H. doi:10.1046/J.1365-2966.2003.07063.X. ISSN 0035-8711. Wikidata Q58413610.
36. Gerald A. Meehl; Lisa Goddard; James Murphy; et al. (October 2009). "Decadal Prediction". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 90 (10): 1467–1486. doi:10.1175/2009BAMS2778.1. ISSN 0003-0007. Wikidata Q58068824.
37. Camilo Mora; Bénédicte Dousset; Iain R. Caldwell; et al. (19 June 2017). "Global risk of deadly heat". Nature Climate Change. 7 (7): 501–506. Bibcode:2017NatCC...7..501M. doi:10.1038/NCLIMATE3322. ISSN 1758-678X. S2CID 90219036. Wikidata Q45373176.

External links

• EdHawkins.org
• Ed Hawkins on Twitter