Google Doodle shows how climate change has already affected the planet

Google Earth Update Offers, Dramatic Perspective on Climate Change.The update is the first significant change for the popular satellite imaging app.Using the new feature, Timelapse.users can look at images of a particular site all the way back to 1985.Pressing the play button allows users to watch how the site has changed over the decades.Using Earth Engine, we combined more than 15 million satellite images from the past several decades collected by five different satellites, About Section of Google Earth's Timelapse, via IGN.Google teamed up with Carnegie Mellon University's CREATE Lab to come up with a section called "Stories.".In "Stories," users can focus on Urban Expansion, Changing Forests, Sources of Energy, Fragile Beauty or Warming Planet.Each section highlights how human-caused climate change and expansion have impacted particular locations

To commemorate Earth Day, Google’s latest Doodle uses 20 years of images to show how climate change is affecting the planet — it’s not a pretty picture.

“Using real time-lapse imagery from Google Earth Timelapse and other sources, the Doodle shows the impact of climate change across four different locales around our planet. Stay tuned throughout the day to view these scenes, each remaining on the homepage for several hours at a time,” according to an official statement from the company.

To view the looping time-lapses, go to Google.com or click on the company logo on any of its other pages. Real imagery from Google Earth and the U.S. Geological Survey is used to show decades of melting snow, deforestation and coral bleaching in four different locations.

Scenes include the disappearing Furtwangler Glacier near Mount Kilimanjaro’s summit; coral bleaching across the Great Barrier Reef’s Lizard Island; drought impacts on the Harz Forests in Germany; and melting sea ice and ice sheets in Greenland.

“Acting now and together to live more sustainably is necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change,” the Earth Day team wrote about the Doodle. Search “climate change” to learn more about its causes and effects, as well as what you can do to help stop it.