The impacts of climate change will be widespread across the globe. Emissions of greenhouse gases have already altered the Earth’s atmosphere and the climate is already changing. We will live with the consequences of these changes for the next few decades, regardless of the actions we take now to reduce our emissions.

Access the map illustrating the effects of climate change.

However, as Kirsty Lewis, Principal Climate Change Consultant, explains beyond that time, future climate change depends on whether we continue to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at the rate we currently do, or whether we take effective steps to dramatically reduce our emissions.

The difference between these two courses of action is the difference between some inevitable climate change, and more severe, ‘high-end’ climate change in the longer term. This is a decision that faces politicians at the global climate change negotiations at Copenhagen in December.

Mapping the impacts

In order to understand more about what the human impact of high-end climate change might be, and, therefore, what would happen if a successful agreement can not be reached at Copenhagen, the Met Office Hadley Centre has produced a map outlining some of the impacts that may occur if the global average temperature rises by 4 °C (7 °F) above the pre-industrial climate average.

The map was produced by the Met Office (on behalf of HM Government), but contains contributions from climate scientists from other institutions conducting the latest research on climate impacts.

Although the average temperature rise over the globe is 4 °C (7 °F) the projection on the map shows that this average rise will not be spread uniformly across the globe. The land will heat up more quickly than the sea, and high latitudes, particularly the Arctic, will have larger temperature increases. The average land temperature will be 5.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.