Team Vizionary · DSC 106 Final Project

One Planet. Four Futures.

Climate change is not a single forecast. It is a branching set of possible futures shaped by emissions, policy, technology, and adaptation. This explorer turns CMIP6 climate projections into a guided story you can read, compare, and interrogate.

4 emissions pathways

8 regions compared

2100 late-century horizon

Start the story Jump to explorer

Begin with CMIP6

Primer

Before the charts: what are we comparing?

CMIP6 is a global scientific effort that models Earth's climate not as a single prediction, but as a set of plausible futures. Each future is defined by a SSP — a Shared Socioeconomic Pathway — built around choices we are making right now about emissions, energy, and policy. Because every pathway runs through the same model ensemble, differences in warming and rainfall reflect those choices directly — not a change in chart design. This project tracks two key signals: temperature anomaly and precipitation anomaly across eight regions through 2100, letting you see exactly how each pathway reshapes the planet.

SSP1-2.6

The low-warming path

A sustainability-focused future with aggressive emissions cuts. Warming is not erased, but the late-century global average stays near 1.6°C in this model run, leaving more room for adaptation.

1.6°C Global avg by 2100

~3°C Arctic warming

Low Emissions level

SSP2-4.5

Middle-of-the-road drift

Current policy momentum continues with partial mitigation. The world still warms substantially, reaching about 3.0°C globally by late century, and the adaptation window narrows.

3.0°C Global avg by 2100

~6°C Arctic warming

Mid Emissions level

SSP3-7.0

Regional rivalry heats up

A fragmented world of resurgent nationalism and trade barriers. Emissions continue to climb, pushing global warming to about 4.0°C by late century, with severe impacts on food and water security.

4.0°C Global avg by 2100

~10°C Arctic warming

High Emissions level

SSP5-8.5

Fossil-fueled development

The highest-emissions pathway: rapid economic growth powered by unabated fossil fuel use. Global temperatures could rise 6.0°C by 2100, with the Arctic warming beyond 15°C — a planetary-scale transformation.

6.0°C Global avg by 2100

~15°C Arctic warming

Very High Emissions level

The Big Picture: Late-Century Warming

By 2100, under the fossil-fueled SSP5-8.5 scenario, the planet could warm by 4–5°C on average. The Arctic bears the brunt, with temperature anomalies exceeding 15°C. This map shows the spatial pattern of late-century warming — every region is affected, but not equally.

Projected temperature change by 2100 under SSP5-8.5

Present-Day Warming

Warming is already here. Between 2015 and 2024, global average temperatures have risen ~0.3–0.9°C above the 1995–2014 baseline, with the Arctic warming several times faster. Precipitation patterns are also shifting — some regions are getting wetter, others drier.

Precipitation change under SSP5-8.5 by 2100

SSP5-8.5: Business as Usual

If emissions continue unabated (the "fossil-fueled development" path), global temperatures could rise 4–5°C by 2100. The Arctic would warm over 15°C. This scenario represents the upper bound of possible climate outcomes — and the stakes couldn't be higher.

Global temperature scenarios over time

SSP3-7.0: Regional Rivalry

In this high-emissions scenario, warming reaches ~3–4°C globally by 2100. But the impacts are far from uniform. The Arctic warms more than four times the global average, while tropical regions face combined heat and precipitation stress.

Projected 2100 warming by region

SSP2-4.5: Middle of the Road

Under this "middle path" scenario — where current policies continue but some mitigation is adopted — warming stabilizes around ~2.5–3°C. The world still warms significantly, but many of the worst outcomes are avoided.

Temperature vs. precipitation change by region

SSP1-2.6: The Green Path

With aggressive emissions reductions and a shift toward sustainability, warming could be held to ~1.5–2°C. This is the pathway aligned with the Paris Agreement goals. It requires rapid decarbonization — but the data shows it's still within reach.

Regional warming accelerates through the century

Sea Level Rise

When temperatures climb, so do the seas.

Global warming doesn't just heat the air — it expands ocean water and melts land ice. For every degree the planet warms, sea levels rise at an accelerating rate. This relationship, derived from IPCC AR6 projections, lets us estimate how much higher the water could reach. Drag the thermometer to explore how different levels of warming translate into sea-level rise — and what that means for coastal communities.

Sea-level estimates derived from global temperature anomalies using IPCC AR6 parameterization. Colored dots on the thermometer mark where each SSP scenario lands by 2100.

Interactive Exploration

Now test the futures yourself.

The evidence section gives you the argument. The globe lets you investigate the spatial pattern yourself: switch pathways, compare temperature and precipitation, scrub through decades, and rotate the planet to see how the future moves.

Scroll to explore

Method

Built from processed climate model data.

Data pipeline

CMIP6 temperature and precipitation fields were converted into web-ready CSV and JSON assets: global and regional time series, late-century summaries, gridded decade data, and a TopoJSON world basemap.

D3 evidence layer

The three narrative evidence figures are rendered as D3 SVG charts from the processed data and annotated around the project thesis.

Interactive layer

The globe loads compact decade grids, then updates color, scenario, variable, time, and rotation in the browser so visitors can move from narrative to exploration.

Conclusion

The future is not written yet.

The core takeaway is simple but consequential: every fraction of warming avoided changes the map. In this model run, the low pathway keeps late-century global warming near 1.6°C, while the fossil-fueled benchmark climbs beyond 6°C and pushes the Arctic toward 15°C. The difference between pathways is the difference between adaptation under pressure and transformation at planetary scale.

Data: CMIP6 multi-model ensemble · Visualization: Team Vizionary · DSC 106