It is both a potent portrayal of the effects of climate changeClimate change is a lasting change in weather patterns over long periods of time. It can be a natural phenomena and and has occurred on Earth even before people inhabited it. Quite different is a current situation that is also referred to as climate change, anthropogenic climate change, or ... and an urgent call to action. On 22 October, David Miliband, The UK Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Ed Miliband, the UK Secretary of State of EnergyThe ability to perform work, mainly kinetic, potential, thermal energy, but also in forms of gravitational, sound, elastic and electromagnetic energy. and ClimateClimate is typically defined as the average weather (or more rigorously a statistical description of the average in terms of the mean and variability) over a period of time, usually 30 years. These quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Climate ... Change publicly released a world map developed by the UK Met Office Hadley Centre, showing the implications for the world of four degrees of warming.

The development of the map involved senior scientists from the Met Office and other highly respected institutions and included testing by peer review.

Launch the interactive full screen map

The map shows significant temperature rises on land, with the hottest days of the year in many highly populated areas being between 6 and 12 degrees C (11-22F) higher than they are now. It sets out the impact of sea level rises that could put 150 million more people at risk from flooding in Asia and other vulnerable regions. It examines the impacts on agricultural production, with potentially tens to hundreds of millions more people at risk from hunger, and tells us that climate change could lead to a situation later this century where more than a third of the global population is living in areas with limited per capita availability of water.