What the World Will Look Like 4°C Warmer.

Polynesia is gone – sunk beneath the waves. Pakistan and South India have been abandoned. And Europe is slowly turning into a desert. This is the world, 4°C warmer than it is now. 

But there is also good news: Western Antarctica is no longer icy and uninhabitable. Smart cities thrive in newly green and pleasant lands. And Northern Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia produce bountiful harvests to feed the hundreds of millions of climate refugees who now call those regions home.

This map, which shows some of the effects a 4°C rise in average temperature could have on the planet, is eight years old, but it seems to get more contemporary as it ages (and the planet warms).11 Antarctica is white with snow and ice, on the ground and, traditionally, on most maps. 

This map has turned the continent's western end incongruously green. And only last week did reports confirm that Antarctica is indeed turning green.

Read the Big Think story - “What the World Will Look Like 4°C Warmer.”