Map Developed to Highlight Climate Change Hot Spots

Climate change is going to affect almost every region on our planet and urgent steps are required to deal with it. Over time, some of the places will get hotter, some cloudier, some drier and some wetter. A new map has been developed by using 14 years of data that shows which areas of the earth are going to affect the most due to climate change.

The map featured in the journal Nature has been developed using new system that analyzes satellite data. It represents what researchers call a vegetation sensitivity index (VSI), a method that combines many data sources. The first set of data used for the new map was taken from the enhanced vegetation index.

Developers behind the map used year-by-year data and information on what conditions a region may face if it sees sudden fluctuation in moisture, temperature and cloud cover. The map shows the regions of earth that are vulnerable to different types of fluctuations.

Alistair Seddon, biologist at the University of Bergen in Norway and lead developer, said the researchers used images captured by NASA satellite. Four researchers were assigned to identify regions that could be sensitive to climate change, Seddon added.

Seddon and his colleagues analyzed vegetation changes in 14 years, from 2000 to 2013, in response to monthly changes in availability of water, air, temperature and cloud cover. The VSI produced by the team shows most vulnerable ecosystems of the planet in red, while the least sensitive regions were in green color.

“Understanding how ecosystems are going to respond to climate variability is an important feature that we still don’t have a lot of information on. And so what our study is doing is providing that perspective at a global scale”, said Seddon.