English: Comparison of three w:Warming stripes graphics, visualizing the same dataset but with different "reference periods"—whose respective temperature averages determine the boundary between blue and red stripes.

• 1951-1980 for the top panel
• 1961-1990 for the middle panel
• 1971-2000 for the bottom panel

Thin purple horizontal bars show the reference periods (here, each 30 years) for each stripe diagram.

General notes:

• Credit for general concept of w:warming stripes: climate scientist Ed Hawkins, w:University of Reading, U.K.
• Data values are visualized using color rather than locations of points on a graph.
• Horizontal scale is time, from 1850 (left) to 2018 (right).
• Each hue (up to 8 blue and 8 red) covers a temperature range of 0.10° C.
• Data is global (not for a locality).

Dataset is from w:Berkeley Earth, global, 1850-2018. Links to source data are provided in the Wikimedia page of the related image pictured below, which constitutes the top panel in the present graphic. Each color in these graphics covers a 0.10° C temperature range.

Explanation: This comparison illustrates how choice of reference period can allow the full range of data to be represented and not fall out of range of a limited number of stripe colors (here, 8 blue plus 8 red hues).

Here, the top panel has the reference period with the lowest average temperature, and as a result some of the most recent years are "off the color scale". In this comparison example, choosing later and later reference periods (which have higher and higher average temperatures) avoids going off the scale.

Expanding the temperature range of coverage of each color hue can also avoid this clipping, though that is dealt with in a separate Wikimedia file: here.