Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies

[#1]

Many things in nature can be seen as chain reactions. When one action occurs, others follow suit. For example, atmospheric greenhouse gas levels are increasing, which leads to a warming of the oceans. As the oceans warm, weather and climate patterns across the globe are impacted because the amount of water vapor in the air changes.  This image built in SAS Visual Analytics shows the variation in sea surface temperature anomalies by year.  The average from 1950-2000 is shown as a baseline for context.  

You can read more about the effect of climate change on the oceans and Arctic in the SAS Voices blog 4 ways to visualize climate changes in the oceans and the Arctic.

[PGStats]

Thought provoquing graph.

Questions that immediately spring to mind:

Where is the X axis (year)?

What does the "confidence interval" represent, measurement uncertainty, seasonnal variability, or something else? 

Whys isn't zero degrees the reference value when depicting anomalies?

[themaryosborne]

These graphics were initially built as a part of an infographic.  With the size of the image in the infographic, the x axis got muddy and hard to read, so I opted to not display it as the image still shows the overall upward trend.

The confidence intervals were determined based on the quality and quantity of underlying measurements.

The data itself is showing anomalies or differences compared to the sea surface temperature from 1950-2000, that's why the reference line isn't set to zero.