A new vision of climate change

Millions of Google Earth users around the world will be able to see how climate change could affect the planet and its people over the next century, along with viewing the loss of Antarctic ice shelves over the last 50 years.

Climate Change in Our World, launched by UK prime minister Gordon Brown at the Google Zeitgeist conference, is the product of a collaboration between Google, the UK government, the Met Office Hadley Centre and the British Antarctic Survey. It provides two new ‘layers’, or animations, available to all users of Google Earth.

One animation uses leading climate science from the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre to show world temperatures throughout the next hundred years under medium projections of greenhouse gas emissions. It also shows stories of how people in the UK and in some of the world’s poorest countries are already being affected by changing weather patterns.

The animation contains information on action that can be taken by individuals, communities, businesses and governments to tackle climate change, and highlights good work already underway.