GC Insights: Rainbow colour maps remain widely used in the geosciences

Richard M. Westaway

doi:10.5194/gc-5-83-2022

GC Insights: Rainbow colour maps remain widely used in the geosciences

Richard M. Westaway

School of Geographical Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

54 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Rainbow colour maps are known to be problematic yet remain widely used in scientific communication. This study extends work by Stoelzle and Stein (2021) to investigate the extent of their use in geoscience publications. It is found that over half (55 %) of all papers surveyed from six geoscience journals from the years 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020 (n = 2,638) contained at least one visualisation that uses rainbow or red-green colour schemes and are therefore potentially misleading and colour inaccessible. Recent changes to the submission guidelines for all EGU journals would seem to place greater responsibility in the future with editors and reviewers to identify and correct colour issues as part of the review process.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	83–86
Number of pages	6
Journal	Geoscience Communication
Volume	5
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.5194/gc-5-83-2022
Publication status	Published - 11 Mar 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Financial support. The work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 694188 (GlobalMass).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Richard M. Westaway.

Research Groups and Themes

GlobalMass

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10.5194/gc-5-83-2022

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This is the final published version of the article (version of record). It first appeared online via Copernicus Publications at https://doi.org/10.5194/gc-5-83-2022. Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher.
Final published version, 547 KBLicence: CC BY

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GlobalMass: Global ice and ocean mass trends
Bates, P. D. (Co-Principal Investigator), Bingham, R. J. (Co-Principal Investigator), Chuter, S. J. (Researcher), Hofer, S. (Student), Llovell, W. (Researcher), Martin Espanol, A. (Researcher), Rougier, J. C. (Co-Principal Investigator), Schumacher, M. (Researcher), Sha, Z. (Researcher), Westaway, R. M. (Manager), Royston, S. J. (Researcher), Vishwakarma, B. D. (Researcher), Bamber, J. L. (Principal Investigator), Brady, A. (Researcher), Ziegler, Y. (Researcher), Abele, A. K. (Student) & Lehmann, F. (Student)
1/08/16 → 30/11/22
Project: Research

Cite this

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title = "GC Insights: Rainbow colour maps remain widely used in the geosciences",

abstract = "Rainbow colour maps are known to be problematic yet remain widely used in scientific communication. This study extends work by Stoelzle and Stein (2021) to investigate the extent of their use in geoscience publications. It is found that over half (55 %) of all papers surveyed from six geoscience journals from the years 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020 (n = 2,638) contained at least one visualisation that uses rainbow or red-green colour schemes and are therefore potentially misleading and colour inaccessible. Recent changes to the submission guidelines for all EGU journals would seem to place greater responsibility in the future with editors and reviewers to identify and correct colour issues as part of the review process.",

author = "Westaway, {Richard M.}",

note = "Funding Information: Financial support. The work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 694188 (GlobalMass). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 Richard M. Westaway.",

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N2 - Rainbow colour maps are known to be problematic yet remain widely used in scientific communication. This study extends work by Stoelzle and Stein (2021) to investigate the extent of their use in geoscience publications. It is found that over half (55 %) of all papers surveyed from six geoscience journals from the years 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020 (n = 2,638) contained at least one visualisation that uses rainbow or red-green colour schemes and are therefore potentially misleading and colour inaccessible. Recent changes to the submission guidelines for all EGU journals would seem to place greater responsibility in the future with editors and reviewers to identify and correct colour issues as part of the review process.

AB - Rainbow colour maps are known to be problematic yet remain widely used in scientific communication. This study extends work by Stoelzle and Stein (2021) to investigate the extent of their use in geoscience publications. It is found that over half (55 %) of all papers surveyed from six geoscience journals from the years 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020 (n = 2,638) contained at least one visualisation that uses rainbow or red-green colour schemes and are therefore potentially misleading and colour inaccessible. Recent changes to the submission guidelines for all EGU journals would seem to place greater responsibility in the future with editors and reviewers to identify and correct colour issues as part of the review process.

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M3 - Article (Academic Journal)

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JO - Geoscience Communication

JF - Geoscience Communication

IS - 1

ER -

GC Insights: Rainbow colour maps remain widely used in the geosciences

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Research Groups and Themes

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GlobalMass: Global ice and ocean mass trends

Cite this