1. Comprehending Climate Change With Alteryx
Ken Black
June 6, 2017
Comprehending
Climate Change
With Alteryx
@3danim8
Twitter

2. Presentation Outline The Origin of This Work Motivation I, II and III
Background
Published Materials
Data Source
Data Preparation Via Alteryx
Data Overview
Data Visualization Via Tableau
Closing Remarks

3. The Origin of This Work
There is a brilliant man I know named Art Hammer that is responsible for this story.
I previously worked with him doing statistically-based process improvement work.
Left: Young Art (1980s) with his mentor W. Edwards Deming (laughing)
Right: Older Art (2012) writing an equation on a whiteboard - entirely from memory!

4. Deming had significantly more cranial volume than me!
Although I Might Resemble Deming
Deming had significantly more cranial volume than me!

5. In 2012, Art and I Had A Random Conversation
Art: “Global warming is not happening – it is fake.”
Ken: “How do you know?”
Art: “I did the calculations”
Ken: “Can you show me the calculations?
Art: “I don’t have them with me”
Ken: “What data did you use?”
Art: “A lot of data.”

6. Alteryx Enabled Me To Investigate
Five years later, I have never seen Art’s calculations
In 2014, I started my own global warming calculations
Hundreds of work hours later, I now have insights
Alteryx allowed me to solve the problem

7. Motivation I: My Mission
I love planet earth, and all the life upon it
I would like to understand the climate changes that may be happening
I have no political or scientific agenda that I am following
I do not try to explain why climate changes might be happening

8. Motivation II: I Needed To End My
Personal Climate Change Confusion

9. Motivation Part III – What I Need
To compute spatial & temporal air temperature changes over time
To deconvolute the time-series curves shown below
To learn the truth of what is happening in our atmosphere

10. Background I have been doing this work for nearly 3 years
Nobody ever asked me to do this work. I created the ideas and am solely responsible for what has been created
My natural curiosity coupled with Alteryx and Tableau have allowed me to perform this work
I have asked the data to tell me a story and the data has complied with my request

11. Published Materials
3danim8’s Blog

12. Phase I Published Materials
3danim8’s Blog

13. Phase II Published Materials
3danim8’s Blog

14. Other Alteryx Published Materials

15. Data Source Data Source – The Global Historical Climatology Network
Daily climate data
25 Gigabytes in compact format
100,818 monitoring stations world-wide
Data goes back to 1700’s in certain countries

16. GHCN – Global Historical Climatology Network

17. A Sample of the Native, Compact Daily Data Format

18. Data Preparation Via Alteryx
There is no way this work would exist without Alteryx
The data processing methodology has been described in detail in this article
The data has been processed with three generations of workflows, with unique results achieved!

19. Alteryx Configuration For Reading Compact Daily Data

20. Step 1: Process the Monitoring Station Data

21. Step 2: Process Data From A Selection of Monitoring Stations
This is a batch macro driver program
This is a batch macro driver program

22. Step 2a: Write Daily Temperatures

23. Step 2b: Write Monthly Temperatures

24. Step 2c: Write Decade Temperatures

25. Step 3: Batch Process Weather Data

26. Step 4: Generate Monthly Averages

27. Step 5: Process Delta Temps
Compute Differences from 1960’s to 2010’s

28. >36.6 Gb, 4.4 Hrs, 176M Records It Is Pretty Big Data
To Be Working With
In My Spare Time!

29. Data Overview
12,181 Monitoring Stations Processed

30. Daily Data Sample

31. Monthly Data Sample

32. Decade Data Sample

33. Data Visualization Via Tableau
Monitoring Stations Over Time

34. Data Visualization Via Tableau
Visualizing Monthly Tmax and Tmin Data Data Over Time

35. Data Visualization Via Tableau
Decade Data

36. Data Visualization Via Tableau
The Change From 1960’s to 2010’s

37. Change In March from 1960’s to 2010’s

38. Change In May from 1960’s to 2010’s

39. Patterns of Heating and Cooling

40. March Clustering

41. Closing Remarks This work is a labor of love
Eventually people will take notice of this work and will share the knowledge it contains
Thanks for listening and subscribe to my blog if you want to follow the story as it continues to unfold

42. Further Study The End (For Now)
If anyone wants this presentation, just me at or contact me through my blog
Many of the dashboards are on my Tableau Public site
Believers: Watch This Compelling Video
Skeptics: Watch This Feedback Video
Believers: Watch This Colorado Rocky Mountain Video
The End (For Now)