The Climate Physics of Planet Earth

Building Earth is a new interactive map that explains how the Earth's climate has developed over millions of years through the lens of physics. The map strips the planet back to its absolute bare bones and then walks you through the four main developmental stages of the Earth - showing you how it gained an atmosphere, how wind currents began to move heat, and how the complex weather patterns we recognize today finally took shape.

By building the world from the ground up, the simulation allows you to see the "why" behind global temperatures. It helps explain, for instance, why London remains relatively mild in winter while Moscow- at a similar latitude - freezes, or why the world's great deserts almost all cluster along the same specific bands of latitude. It takes us on a stage-by-stage journey through Earth's entire climatic history, visualized beautifully on an interactive data-driven 3D globe.

While visually impressive, the globe is not without its anachronisms. By using a contemporary map for every climatic stage, the simulation overlooks the fact that plate tectonics would have rendered the continents entirely differently millions of years ago when the atmosphere first formed. However, this simplification is likely intentional - allowing users to better understand how familiar modern-day locations would be affected by these fundamental physical changes. In fact, you can click on the map during each stage to learn more about the specific climate conditions at your current location. It is obviously much easier to find and select known cities or regions using our modern tectonic layout than it would be to navigate a less recognizable primordial supercontinent.

Building Earth even includes its own integrated AI. Users can choose to query the map using ready-made prompts - such as why the equator remains cold in early stages or why water temperatures are more stable than land - or they can ask their own custom questions about the climate at a specific clicked location. The map also includes a neat GIF generator (that I used to create the animated globe at the top of this post).

Also See

GPlates - an animated globe illustrating Earth's evolution over millions of years

Ancient Earth - an interactive 3D globe spanning the entire history of life on Earth