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Data Vis Dispatch
January 17th, 2023

Data Vis Dispatch, January 17

The best of last week’s big and small data visualizations

Photo of Veronika Halamková, data vis writer at Datawrapper
Veronika Halamková

Welcome back to the 77th edition of Data Vis Dispatch! Every week, we’ll be publishing a collection of the best small and large data visualizations we find, especially from news organizations — to celebrate data journalism, data visualization, simple charts, elaborate maps, and their creators.

Recurring topics this week include record-high temperatures and flight cancellations.

2022 was officially the fifth-hottest year on record, especially due to high temperatures in Europe and Asia.

The Financial Times: Climate graphic of the week: ‘alarming’ trends revealed in weather reports, January 14
The Wall Street Journal: World’s Oceans Absorbed Record Heat From Warming Climate in 2022, January 12
The Wall Street Journal: Tornadoes, Hurricanes and Wildfires Racked Up $165 Billion in Disaster Damage in 2022, January 10
The New York Times: The Last 8 Years Were the Hottest on Record, January 10
SPIEGEL: Ein ganz normales Rekordjahr, January 14
The Economist: Europe’s freakish winter heatwave breaks records, January 12

Unfortunately, the hot weather should come as no surprise. Researchers at the oil and gas giant ExxonMobil predicted global warming decades ago.

The New York Times: Exxon Scientists Predicted Global Warming, Even as Company Cast Doubts, Study Finds, January 12

Meanwhile, California is hit by a series of harsh storms.

Los Angeles Times: What is causing the parade of storms battering California?, January 12
The Washington Post: Atmospheric rivers won’t end California’s drought, January 13

But it was a technical glitch, rather than extreme weather, that caused flight cancellations across the U.S. this week.

BBC: FAA outage: Further delays to US flights expected after technical glitch, January 12
USA Today: Flights grounded nationwide after key FAA computer system fails, January 11
The Wall Street Journal: ​U.S. Flight Disruptions Mount After FAA Grounding Order Ends, January 11

Charts from National Geographic and ZEIT Online looked at aging and migration in Japan and Germany.

National Geographic: Japan confronts a stark reality: a nation of old people, January 12
ZEIT Online: Die Stadtflucht, January 12

Meanwhile, far-right political protests are a shared concern in the U.S. and Brazil.

The Economist: America’s far right is increasingly protesting against LGBT people, January 13
NEXO: Maioria dos presos de 8 de janeiro tem mais de 45 anos, January 11

Other visualizations this week covered the return of Native American remains, the state of the semiconductor industry, and Elon Musk’s record-breaking losses in 2022.

ProPublica: Does Your Local Museum or University Still Have Native American Remains?, January 11
The Wall Street Journal: Chips Are the New Oil and America Is Spending Billions to Safeguard Its Supply, January 14
Bloomberg: Elon Musk Might Never Be the World’s Richest Person Again, January 11

What else we found interesting

USA Today: A rare green comet is headed our way. Here’s how to see it without a telescope, January 15

Applications are open for…

Help us make this dispatch better! We’d love to hear which newsletters, blogs, or social media accounts we need to follow to learn about interesting projects, especially from less-covered parts of the world (Asia, South America, Africa). Write us at hello@datawrapper.de or leave a comment below.

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Photo of Veronika Halamková, data vis writer at Datawrapper
Veronika Halamková
(she/her, @v_halamkova) was a data vis writer in the Communications team between 2022 and 2023. She lives in Berlin and created and wrote beautiful data visualizations. Before Datawrapper, she worked in the data team at Tortoise Media.

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