Rate of Temperature Change

 Most recent data from Berkeley Earth

What is the Rate of Temperature Change?

This chart focuses on the speed of the warming periods and cooling periods after 1850. Before 1920 there were periods of warming and cooling, but they were relatively slow. After 1920 the temperature change accelerated significantly, as you can see by the height of the second red hill. The following small blue area represents the slowdown and cooling period during the global dimming. After the global dimming, in 1975, the rise in temperature became even faster than before, and there have been no more cooling periods since.


The Rate of Temperature Change is a critical metric because it shows how fast global warming is happening.

Units and measures

Temperature change in degree Celsius (°C) or degree Fahrenheit (°F) per year

Wikipedia: Degree Celsius

Insights from this chart

This chart focuses on the speed of the warming periods and cooling periods after 1850. Before 1920 there were periods of warming and cooling and they were relatively slow. After 1920 the change of temperature accelerated significantly, which you can see in the height of the second red hill. The following small blue area represents the slowdown and cooling period during the global dimming. After global dimming and 1975 the temperature rise became even faster than before and there have been no more cooling periods since.


Read more about details of Yearly Average Temperature and global dimming at

Yearly Average Temperature Anomaly
Yearly Average Temperature

About the data

This value is a 30-year moving regression of temperature. We use a 30-year moving regression because climate is about long-term weather patterns, typically averaged over 30 years. A moving regression is a calculation used to analyze data points by creating a series of linear trendlines of different subsets of the full data set.

Wikipedia: Moving regression

Data sources

Temperature Data Berkeley Earth
Credits: Rohde, R. A. and Hausfather, Z.: The Berkeley Earth Land/Ocean Temperature Record, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 3469–3479, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-3469-2020, 2020.Update cycle: monthlyDelay: ~ 1 month