Strawberry Creek, photograph (2022) and mouseover data layer (2009-2021) by Greg Niemeyer

Strawberry Creek runs from Strawberry Canyon through the campus of the University of California, Berkeley into the Pacific Ocean. The small creek has two branches, and it could sustain 100 people on its own. Yet it runs through a community of 100,000 people, and it’s mostly paved over. Its temperature went up 5.8˚ F in 12 years, from 2009-2021. This change is visible in the spiral temperature graph, showing the average temperature in 2009 and in 2021, clockwise.

Data about the creek’s temperature was collected on behalf of the University since 2008. The data includes 15 min interval measurements of creek temperature and stage, which refers to how much water is in the creek by water level. The Water Archive copied and scrubbed the raw data from 2009-2021. We then averaged the data per year and stored the annual averages here. They are also displayed in the image above.