https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/157b9194ac87423d8d5d7526ba80cd2f

The Earth has warmed about 1.36°C since the Industrial Revolution and current estimates predict that the Earth will warm another 1.5°C by 2050 (SOURCE). The 1.5°C (and sometimes even 2°C) figure is thrown around a lot when talking about climate change, but often difficult to conceptualize. Additionally, a sentiment among some climate change deniers is that this temperature increase might be happening, but it is ultimately harmless and might even be beneficial.

My project is a response to the ambiguity of the 1.5°C warming estimate. For the project, I created a world map that highlights key areas across the globe that are already being negatively impacted by climate change. It is a visual representation of what warming temperatures have already done to different ecosystems, and how they will inevitably get worse without the proper intervention as the Earth continues to warm.

The map highlights problems like the wildfires in California, coral bleaching along the Great Barrier Reef, and the drying Mesopotamian Marshes in Iraq. In selecting the locations, I did a combination of issues that have received a fair amount of media coverage along with issues that might be lesser known. In doing so, I tried to only cover a particular threat once as its intended to be more journalistic and for a casual audience, rather than a comprehensive database of climate change-related destruction. So while wildfires are happening in a lot more places due to climate change than just California, that is the only place they are detailed on this map.

There is also a unique intersection of climate change with biological threats: mosquito-borne diseases. As the climate warms, the weather conditions needed for mosquito breeding last longer, lengthening mosquito seasons. Additionally, mosquitos can survive in locations closer to the poles, so there is a migration of mosquitos further and further from the equator as climate zones shift.