Screenshot of a "climate spiral" depicting annual average global temperatures beginning in 1850, with radial axis representing temperature, and changing color also indicating (generally rising) temperature. Screenshot is the final frame of an animated GIF that is shown and linked below.
<p>Graphic includes data for year 2017, so the formal "creation/publication" date (below) for Wikimedia purposes is reported as 31 December 2017. 
</p>
However, earlier versions of the graphic (Ed Hawkins, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Reading" class="extiw" title="w:University of Reading">University of Reading</a> climate scientists) were published at least as early as May 2016, as reported by: <cite style="font-style:normal"> (<span class="mw-formatted-date" title="2016-05-10">10 May 2016</span>). "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190222013000/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/05/10/the-most-compelling-visual-of-global-warming-ever-made/">Unraveling spiral: The most compelling global warming visualization ever made</a>". <i>The Washington Post</i>. Archived from <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/05/10/the-most-compelling-visual-of-global-warming-ever-made/">the original</a> on <span class="mw-formatted-date" title="2019-02-22">22 February 2019</span>.</cite>
Ed Hawkins, climate scientist at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Reading" class="extiw" title="w:University of Reading">University of Reading</a>
CC BY-SA 4.0
Hawkins, Ed, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190727142207/http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/spirals/">Climate spirals / Global temperature change (1805-2017)</a>. <i>Climate Lab Book</i> (2018). Archived from <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/spirals/">the original</a> on <span class="mw-formatted-date" title="2019-07-27">27 July 2019</span>. "LICENSE / Creative Commons License / These blog pages &amp; images are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License." (<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190528013642/http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/files/2016/06/spiral_2017_large-1.gif">Direct link to image</a>).