Experiment 06 · Data Story
Earth in Transition: Ice, Islands, Coral Reefs, Wildfires and Disasters since 1900
What has measurably changed on our planet since 1900? Sea ice, the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, the islands of the Indian Ocean, coral reefs, wildfires and natural disasters, with short answers, maps and 20 charts. Every number can be traced to its source.
What you can explore
One circle, one century, every country
A globe of evidence
129 findings on ice, islands, coral reefs and wildfires, placed where they happened. Click one to see the figure, the period and the sources.
Disasters by type and severity
139 major disasters since 1900 on a world map. Switch ten disaster types and four severity classes on and off.
Heat in Europe, guns in the US
Two underrated causes of death side by side, in absolute numbers and per 100,000 people, as far back as reliable data go.
- Arctic summer sea ice, 1979–2026
- −32%
- ice lost by Greenland since 1900
- ≈9,100 Gt
- disaster death rate since the 1920s
- −98%
- heat deaths in Europe, summer 2024
- 62,775
The AI use case
How we built it with AI, step by step
From eight questions to a two-language app: AI-assisted research and engineering, with every figure tied to a named source.
Questions and sources
We broke the brief into eight questions. AI research agents worked through official datasets, papers and reports, and every figure kept a link to where it came from.
One data model
Findings, disasters, charts and 225 sources live in one data model. An automatic check stops the build if a source is missing or a reference breaks.
Interactive app
A canvas globe, six maps and 20 charts that draw only what is on screen. No cookies, no tracking, no requests to third-party servers.
Two languages, one code base
German and English share the same code. A checker makes sure both versions have the same structure, numbers and sources.
Sources and licences
Sea ice: NSIDC Sea Ice Index via Our World in Data; NSIDC analysis of the 2026 Arctic minimum.
Ice sheets: IMBIE 2023; Kjeldsen et al. 2015 (Greenland since 1900).
Islands: Duvat 2019, Kench et al. 2018. Coral reefs: GCRMN 2025.
Wildfires: GWIS via Our World in Data, GFED5, Global Forest Watch.
Disasters: EM-DAT 2025 Disasters in Numbers and Our World in Data (EM-DAT data; EM-DAT terms allow non-commercial use only), IPCC AR6 Chapter 11.
Heat and guns: Janoš et al. 2025 (Nature Medicine), Pew Research Center 2026 (CDC data).
All 225 sources and 45 openly reusable datasets with their licences are listed inside the app. Modelled heat deaths and 2026 values are estimates and marked as such.
Your Next Step
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