Google's 3D climate change map

A screenshot from Google Earth's climate change maps.

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Google is using its Google Earth mapping tool to simulate on a 3D map of the world the predicted effects of climate change until the year 2100.

Using data provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the search giant created new layers for Google Earth showing the range of expected temperature and precipitation changes under different global emissions scenarios that could occur throughout the century.

The new tools were introduced in partnership with the Danish Government ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Convention in December.

Known as the COP15, the meeting in Copenhagen is shaping up as the critical venue for forging a global deal to reduce carbon emissions.

Users can view the effects of climate change on their own country either by installing a plug-in into Google Earth or via a special web page. Initially only temperature and precipitation changes can be viewed but Google plans to add several new layers and videos in the coming weeks.

In a video tour introducing the new Google tools, climate change activist Al Gore showed some of these upcoming layers, which will let users view the ongoing effects of sea-level rises, polar ice-sheet melting and water shortages.

Google will then add further layers highlighting what communities around the world are doing to adapt to their changing climates and reduce their carbon footprint.

The company is hoping that allowing people to visualise the impacts of climate change on a 3D map of the world will compel more people to speak up about the issue.

"If we were not to dramatically reduce our emissions, the global average temperature is expected to rise as much as 4 or more degrees Celsius by the end of this century, and that would cause severe damage to natural systems and human health and wellbeing," Gore says in the introductory video.

"In addition, the destabilisation and extensive melting of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets ... has increased dramatically since 1979 and could cause global sea levels to rise between four and 12 metres, with each metre causing roughly another 100 million refugees."

Google is also forming a partnership with CNN to launch a new YouTube channel allowing punters to "raise your voice on climate change".

Submissions from the public will be run alongside celebrity climate change awareness clips from people including British actress Emma Thompson and the Crown Prince of Denmark.

"These videos will be broadcast on screens around the conference in December and rated by viewers of the channel," Benjamin Kott of Google's green business operations said.

"The top-rated contributions will be aired globally during the COP15 CNN/YouTube debate on December 15, and the top two submissions will win a trip to Copenhagen."

- © Fairfax NZ News