San Diego's stripes paint a vivid picture of climate change

Driving the news: Today is "show your stripes" day, organized by climate activists to share warming-stripes graphs in cities across the country to generate urgency on addressing climate change.

• The temperature graph for San Diego demonstrates the dramatic scale of climate trends in the last century; each red stripe represents a year of above-average temperatures and each blue one a year that was colder than average.
• Professor Ed Hawkins at University of Reading, a U.K.-based research school with an international presence, invented the warming-stripes graphs in 2018.

State of play: San Diego Convention Center lit up its iconic sails last night in colors matching the city's graph as part of the effort, joining municipal landmarks across the country.

By the numbers: San Diego's average temperature in the past couple of years has settled around 63 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.

• That reflects the white stripes at the far right of San Diego's warming graph, representing roughly average temperatures.

• Similarly, recent San Diego spring seasons have been colder, bucking the national trend.
• Yes, but: There's no mistaking the general trend of a sea of blue on the left side of the graph and a pit of red on the right.

Zoom in: Cities in San Diego County have adopted blueprints for how they'll reduce their contribution to climate change in response to state laws that mandate greenhouse emissions cuts, but they haven't all led to the implementation of policies that would achieve those ends.