Climate science
The weather the world is experiencing today continues to mirror climate model predictions from decades ago. When we first realized how successful climate models were at simulating future conditions, we were amazed. We asked ourselves, why aren’t these models more widely used outside the scientific community?
The answer became clear: Many people found the models hard to access, interpret, and apply. Probable Futures began with a desire to make climate science and its predictions accessible and understandable so that everyone, everywhere, can think about climate change in practical ways and prepare for what’s to come.
Our climate maps translate the predictions of climate models into visualizations of past, present, and potential future climate change around the world. In our climate handbook and explainers, we explore what those changes mean for the systems we rely on.
At Probable Futures, we believe that climate science is a gift. In partnership with the Woodwell Climate Research Center, we share the gift of climate science through freely available tools and resources.
Our climate maps
Our climate maps are publicly accessible, rigorously reviewed, and designed to be useful.
We transformed complex climate data into easy-to-use maps with measures relevant to our daily lives, such as “How many days in a year will exceed 100°F?” and “How will the likelihood of drought change in the future?” We selected measures at both global and local scales, with particular relevance to our health and the environments in which we live.
Our scientific approach
Our maps use the CORDEX-CORE framework, a collaborative effort between research institutions to create regional climate model projections. Our science team stitches these regional projections together into global maps with local granularity.
Every Probable Futures offering—from our maps to our climate handbook and explainers—goes through a scientific review with the Woodwell Climate Research Center. Reviewers assess our offerings from a holistic perspective, confirming that our chosen language and methodologies hold up to scrutiny, are widely used in the scientific community, and are defensible and well-documented.