WTE 2015 to 2050 Comparison Explorer

This application is for exploring the layers produced for the World Terrestrial Ecosystem (WTE) 2015 to 2050 Comparison Project. Those layers and others used in the models can be found in the WTE 2015 to 2050 Comparison Project Layers and Maps group or you can download the raster datasets in .tif format from DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.26078788. 

Suggest sequence of exploration. 

1. The default view is of the Change by Percent of Area for countries map. Click on any country to see how the land may be affected under each of the three CMIP6 scenarios we've modeled.  
2. Expand the Change by Percent of Area layer and turn off the countries and turn on the Hydro Basins layer.  It's a very different picture when a more precise view of which lands could change.  Explore the possible changes by scenario for the Hydro Basins.  
3. Turn off the Change by Percent of Area layer and turn on the WTE 2015 to 2050 Popup and WTE Types layers.  
4. Initially the 2015 Ecosystems will draw. Turn on one of the scenarios, let it draw, and then you can turn it on and off rapidly to see the changes. Zoom in and pan around the map while toggling the scenario layers.  Click where you see great amounts of change to learn what type of changes may occur.
5. Turn off the WTE Types layer and turn on the WTE Change Type layer. 
6. Each type of change is color coded - open the legend on the upper right to see what each color means and explore the map and scenario layers.
7. To make the WTE layers, we used the Climate Regions data and Chen Land Cover layers.  Explore these in the same way the as described in step 4 for the WTEs.

For more about the SSP-RCPs read: Explainer: How ‘Shared Socioeconomic Pathways’ explore future climate change on Carbonbrief.com. References:
To learn more about this work, read our open access peer-reviewed journal article in Global Ecology and Conservation, Volume 57, January 2025, e03370: Potential 2050 distributions of World Terrestrial Ecosystems from projections of changes in World Climate Regions and Global Land Cover.