My first project

When I started my Met Office internship in the summer of 2018, one of my main projects was to develop an infographic on ‘The Impacts of Climate Change’. I was excited to have such freedom with the infographic, and after some research, I decided focus on the links between the physical and socioeconomic/ecosystem impacts of climate change. After multiple different designs, discussions with Hadley Centre scientists and countless iterations, I finally sketched out a design for the final infographic. The design team turned this into a professional-looking finished product, and I am very pleased to say that you can now find the finished infographic on the landing site of the ‘Impacts of Climate Change’ pages of the Met Office website.

With this infographic, I wanted to highlight that our climate is a non-linear system, and that a single change can cause knock-on effects across the climate system. Crucially, I decided to focus on the impacts to people. Whilst awareness of the impacts of climate change is certainly increasing, many still see climate change as a distant problem with no direct impact on them. I wanted to show whilst the impacts of climate change vary across the globe, everybody will be affected in one way or another. For example, for those who are not drastically impacted by the physical changes to the climate system, socioeconomic impacts such as the effect of climate migrants and global food shortages may be significant.

Although the accompanying text for this infographic is not hugely detailed, I spent a lot of time researching each of the points mentioned, and have learned a lot about the impacts of climate change from making this infographic. I then made a version specific to the UK, which is also up on the website!

This was my first project, and I still have a soft spot for this graphic.