When do Climate Futures
begin to diverge?
DSC 106 Final Project · CMIP6 country-level climate futures
When do Climate Futures begin to diverge
and what are the consequences of our choices?
What if the climate choices we make today don’t noticeably cause temperature increases for the next few decades? At first, different climate scenarios look relatively similar — but around mid‑century these futures begin to separate dramatically, leading to very different outcomes by 2100. This explorable helps reveal when that divergence happens and why it matters.
Explore when countries cross climate risk thresholds
First, choose a scenario and a risk level. Then scrub through time or press play. Countries that cross the selected risk threshold will light up on the map.
From one shared past to many possible futures
Climate models show the projection of future temperatures under different emissions scenarios. Looking at future warming trends, the temperature increases over the coming decades.
These scenarios are designed to show how human choices shape global temperatures over time. When we plot these scenarios together, they initially appear to tell a reassuring story: for the next couple of decades, the temperature curves stay close to one another, rising at nearly the same pace.
Rising thermometers for different climate futures
Each thermometer represents a CMIP6-style scenario (SSP1–2.6, SSP2–4.5, SSP3–7.0, SSP5–8.5) for the global average. Use the year slider or play button to watch how they rise together at first, then split apart as the century unfolds. The number inside each bulb shows the temperature anomaly for that scenario and year.
Low and high emissions futures are compared here.
When Small Choices Become Big Climate Consequences
A surprising pattern emerges when we compare the projected temperatures in the next few decades. For the first few decades, the projected temperatures for the different emissions scenarios remains relatively the same, making it seem as though current climate decisions have no effect on the future temperature.
However, this is misleading.
This interactive visualization shows when the different climate scenarios begin to diverge and how dramatically they separate by 2100. This allows us to see that climate decisions today don’t have an immediate effect, but have profound consequences for future generations. The key idea is that the impact of our choices are delayed. The future can look relatively the same for different emissions scenarios, yet lead to dramatically different worlds by 2100. This highlights the urgency and long-term importance of making better climate decisions.
Four levels of climate risk
Horizontal lines on the thermometers mark risk thresholds. As you select a country, this section will summarize when that place crosses each risk level under different futures.
Local Stress
At +2 °C of global warming, most countries begin experiencing persistent, locally disruptive impacts. According to the IPCC AR6 WGII, this level brings more frequent heat extremes, increased water stress, and heightened risks to agriculture and health. While many nations can still adapt, the margin for effective adaptation narrows quickly, especially in regions already facing climate pressures.
National Pressure
By +4 °C, the IPCC identifies high to very high risks across nearly all sectors. For individual countries, this means compounding pressures on food production, water availability, infrastructure, and public health. Heatwaves become more dangerous, crop yields decline more sharply, and coastal or arid nations face accelerating adaptation limits. At this stage, climate impacts begin to reshape national planning and economic stability.
Societal Instability
At +6 °C, the IPCC’s long‑term scenario assessments show that many countries face severe and often irreversible impacts. Extreme heat can exceed safe limits for outdoor labor, major ecosystems within national borders may collapse or shift, and critical infrastructure faces chronic stress. Adaptation becomes extremely difficult, and climate impacts begin to challenge social and economic stability within nations.
Transformation Zone
At +8 °C—near the upper bound of high‑emissions long‑term projections—the IPCC indicates that countries enter a state of deep, structural transformation. Entire landscapes may change, from forests to grasslands or from habitable zones to heat‑stressed regions. Coastal nations face long‑term multi‑meter sea‑level rise, and many regions experience heat conditions that exceed human physiological limits. At this level, climate change fundamentally reshapes a country’s geography, economy, and habitability.
Select a country on the map above to see when it crosses each risk level in a extreme‑emissions future (SSP5‑8.5) compared to a low‑emissions future (SSP1‑2.6).
The Resolution
Therefore, the decades that look deceptively similar are actually the most important ones. They are the window in which our decisions carry the greatest leverage. The climate system responds slowly, but it responds powerfully — and by the time the scenarios visibly diverge, the momentum behind each pathway is already set.
The choices we make today determine which of those diverging paths we ultimately follow. Acting early doesn’t produce immediate dramatic differences — it prevents dramatic differences from ever occurring. And that is the hidden truth inside this data.
Multi‑scenario line chart for the selected country
This line chart shows the same CMIP6 data as the thermometers, currently for the global average. The vertical line tracks the current year from the slider above. You can toggle scenarios on and off to focus on specific futures.
The future is not fixed
The key takeaway from our visualizations is that climate futures don’t diverge immediately. In the next few decades, different emissions scenarios lead to similar outcomes. However, around mid-century, the different emissions scenarios begin to diverge significantly, which leads to very different temperature outcomes by 2100. Our visualization shows that divergence on the graph, which makes long term climate outcomes easier to understand than through numbers alone.
The line chart shows how different climate scenarios are clustered together before splitting up after around mid century, which makes the timing of the divergence easy to recognize. The visualization also allows people to compare climate scenarios at different times and different regions, which helps them understand the long-term consequences of different emissions choices.
Project walkthrough
Watch our two-minute walkthrough of the final interactive visualization.
Open the project demo on YouTube Public two-minute walkthrough