The graphs and maps all show changes relative to average temperatures for the three decades from 1951 to 1980, the earliest period for which there was sufficiently good coverage for comparison. This gives a consistent view of climate change across the globe. To put these numbers in context, the NASA team estimates that the global average temperature for the 1951-1980 baseline period was about 14 °C.

Users can change the map, made by Chris Amico and Peter Aldhous, by time period and see an interactive chart with time series data. Here’s the global view for the last two decades:

And users can also zoom to their location (and the time series chart changes):

Source: Rich Blocks, Small Blocks

* These data have high margins of error in small geographic units like Census tracts, which this service uses, so don’t take the figures literally. Still, the estimates can be useful for spotting broader trends about communities.

Thanks to the wife for sharing this discovery.

The nation’s first black president finished more strongly in the region than any other Democratic nominee in three decades, underscoring a fresh challenge for Republicans who rely on Southern whites as their base of national support.

This map compares Obama’s performance in 2008 to this year’s election in the lower 48 states. Darker blue shades represent higher percentage point increases, and darker red shades represent decreases in percentage points. It’s clear he performed better this time in parts of the Deep South:

The Daily Viz

But why? One likely explanation for Obama’s stronger showing in the parts of the South could be that those counties have a high proportion of black voters, and Obama turned them out. According to the Post, “black voters came out in droves on Election Day and voted overwhelmingly for Obama — near or above 95 percent in most parts of the South.” Here’s a map of the black population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. See a correlation?

U.S. Census Bureau

Notice too that Obama did worse in Coal Country than he did four years ago, perhaps because the region has higher unemployment rates than the national average, or because the Romney campaign wooed voters in this region, especially in Virginia. Here’s a map of coal production, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. This is less clear, in part because the map shows all coal-producing counties, not just those in which it’s a key part of the economy now (the red and pink areas in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia):

USGS

And, finally, it’s no surprise that Romney did better than McCain in 2008 in Utah. Romney, of course, is a Mormon and he led the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. But if you want to compare it with the election results, here’s a map of the Mormon population, again from the U.S. Census Bureau:

U.S. Census Bureau

I’m generally not a huge fan of county-by-county election maps because counties as a unit of geography are largely meaningless in national elections. But in this case maybe it’s useful. Meanwhile, check out the Post’s nice map gallery of the 2012 electorate.

First, this map shows the average percentage of possible sunshine by city. (Yuma, AZ, has sun about 90% of the year; Juneau, AK, gets it about 30%). Larger bubbles represent higher percentages of sunshine (click the images for larger, interactive versions):

This map shows (a slightly different) list of cities and their annual average relative humidity in the afternoon:

I’m not sure whether these maps are effective — or whether they should be maps at all. But I wanted to try another quick experiment with CartoDB.

Data source: NOAA | Download: Sunshine, Humidity

To start, I grabbed a simple test data set — five months of geocoded major crimes in D.C. from January to May this year — to check out some features. One I like is allowing users to query their data in the browser-based interface and filter for specific types of records.

Here, for example, I narrowed the map to show just thefts:

Assaults with deadly weapons:

Vehicle thefts:

Thefts from vehicles:

Robberies:

Homicides:

I made these maps in less than five minutes, so I’m sure there are much more useful stories to tell with the tool. There are also many, many features I didn’t explore, like the ability to style the map using Carto, the CSS-like language, rather than the UI.

Anyway, give it a shot, and let me know what you build.

Using the top navigation bar you can toggle the maps to see how passengers in the various ticket classes fared. More than half of the first-class passengers survived, for example, while only about a quarter of the third-class passengers (think Leonardo DiCaprio‘s character) survived:

Despite warnings, federal and state officials repeatedly failed to find out just how bad the problems were. A 14-month USA TODAY investigation has found that the EPA and state regulators left thousands of families and children in harm’s way, doing little to assess the danger around many of the more than 400 potential lead smelter locations on a list compiled by a researcher from old industry directories and given to the EPA in 2001.

Included is an interactive map with information about these locations:

Via Tony Debarros

This map shows which mainland states produced the most NFL players. As one might expect, it looks like a population map. Texas and California, the nation’s two most-populous states, produced the most players — more than 2,000 apiece. Vermont, which trails only the District of Columbia and Wyoming in population as of the 2010 Census, produced the fewest players:

But the map changes when state population is figured in. This map shows the rate of NFL players based on the 2010 population. Louisiana and Mississippi, which rank 25th and 31st in population, respectively, send more players per-person to the NFL than other states:

Of course, I should have used the male population, but there’s only so much time in my lunch break — and the maps wouldn’t look significantly different.

Still reeling from devastating drought that led to at least $10 billion in agricultural losses across Texas and the South in 2011, the nation is enduring more unusually parched weather.

The map uses the same data we at NPR used recently to map conditions in Texas, which endured the worst drought in its history last year. The map shows the full country, for context, and allows users to see an animated view week-by-week from summer 2010 to last month. Check it out. 

[A]n investigation by The New York Times has found that industry practices continue to put animal and rider at risk. A computer analysis of data from more than 150,000 races, along with injury reports, drug test results and interviews, shows an industry still mired in a culture of drugs and lax regulation and a fatal breakdown rate that remains far worse than in most of the world.

The story has a chart and map visualizing the rate of incidents at each track, showing how it varies by state: