For this year’s edition, Terraforma, in collaboration with Atlas of Change, investigates the complex relationships between climate, society, and infrastructure. Together, they lighten the systemic forces reshaping our planet, making the often invisible impacts of climate change tangible through remote sensing technology. In this conversation, we delve into Atlas of Change’s approach to documenting environmental change, the challenges of representing slow-moving yet profound shifts in Earth’s systems, and the role of imagery in fostering awareness and action.

How would you describe your research? 

Our research is about bearing witness to the profound transformations of the world we inhabit from the pressures of climate change.

At Atlas of Change, we track and map the real-time impacts and underlying causes of climate change: tracing real-time events and disturbances, from extreme weather phenomena and ecosystem disruptions to shifts in human activities driving these transformations.

Through remote sensing, advanced satellite imagery, and interdisciplinary climate research, we translate complex environmental data into visual narratives, bridging the gap between abstract science and tangible human experience.

How do these visually captivating images come to life from abstract datas? Could you explain the process behind your work? 

The process behind our work starts with a fundamental question: how do we see climate change? We approach this by examining two interconnected forces—the human activities driving climate change and the environmental transformations unfolding as a result.

1. Human activities: These are the pressures reshaping the planet, and we focus on key drivers:

• Agriculture (deforestation, irrigation patterns, land-use change)
• Energy (coal mines, oil fields, renewables, power grids)
• Materials (mining operations, industrial processes, waste sites)
• Urbanisation (expansion of cities, infrastructure, and land conversion)

2. Climate effects: The impacts of these activities manifest in different ways, which we categorise into:

• Weather (hurricanes, floods, extreme storms)
• Heat (wildfires, heatwaves, droughts)
• Ice (melting glaciers, disappearing sea ice, permafrost thaw)
• Oceans (acidification, shifting currents, coral bleaching, algal blooms)

With this framework, we systematically explore each category, identifying real-time events that can be captured through remote sensing. The advantage of satellite imagery is that it allows me to document environmental change anywhere in the world, particularly in regions, like countries in the Global South, where climate impacts are severe but often underreported.

Once we’ve identified a subject, we determine which remote sensing tools are best suited to visualise it. We work with a combination of data types—multispectral imaging for vegetation and land cover, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for detecting changes in surface texture and structure, LiDAR for elevation mapping, and GIS datasets to contextualise the findings. Using cloud computing and algorithms, we analyse these raw datasets, extracting the patterns and transformations that might otherwise go unseen.

The final step is translation—turning scientific data into a visually compelling narrative. By carefully selecting scale, colour, and perspective, we transform numerical datasets into images that are not just informative but immersive—designed to make climate change visible, and urgent.

What are the limitations and difficulties of presenting climate transformations through images? 

One of the biggest challenges in presenting climate transformations through images is the tension between scale and immediacy. Climate change can unfolds across decade-long or even century-long timescale, but images demand instant recognition. A single satellite image can show a glacier retreating or a wildfire scar, but it can’t always capture the full complexity of why it’s happening or the long-term consequences.

Another limitation is representation. Relying on satellite data allows us to document change anywhere in the world, but not all transformations are equally visible. Some of the most devastating effects of climate change—ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, atmospheric shifts—don’t leave clear, immediate visual traces. Others, like desertification or deforestation, happen so gradually that a single snapshot can’t always convey the urgency of the shift.

Then there’s the challenge of interpretation. Climate imagery sits at the intersection of science and storytelling, but raw data doesn’t speak for itself. Colours are often assigned artificially, scales are adjusted, and different types of satellite data are layered together to make invisible processes visible. This means every image is, in some way, a construction—a translation of data into something legible. While this is necessary, it requires careful responsibility to ensure clarity and, critically, to avoid misinterpretation.

Finally, there’s the issue of emotional distance. Climate visuals can be powerful, but they can also feel abstract—especially when viewed from a satellite’s perspective. There’s always a risk that audiences see these images as something happening far away rather than as an unfolding crisis that affects them directly. The challenge is not just to show change, but to make people feel its weight, to connect data with lived experience, and to turn distant landscapes into urgent realities.

Could you elaborate on how rising temperatures are reshaping the world, and what aspects of climate change are often overlooked in current discussions?

Climate Change is not a singular event. Instead it is a force destabilising the intricate interconnections that sustain life on Earth. It drives a planetary-scale reorganisation, reshaping the movement of energy, matter, and life across land, oceans, and the atmosphere. 

Disruptions to Earth Systems – its water cycles, ice sheets, and ocean currents – are shifting in ways that intensify droughts, trigger extreme rainfall, and accelerate permafrost thaw. These changes don’t just reshape landscapes; they destabilise agriculture, infrastructure, and entire ways of living. 

Yet, much of the discourse around climate change remains centred on immediate disasters—fires, hurricanes, and extreme weather—while the slower, systemic reorganisations often remain unacknowledged. The shifting boundaries of habitability, the deep infrastructural dependencies built for a cooler world, and the way climate change is destabilising where and how we access water, energy, and raw materials are rarely addressed in their full complexity.

Rising temperatures do not simply change the climate; they force an entire restructuring of the conditions under which life, economies, and territories are organised.

Image Courtesy by Atlas of Change – Atlas of Change Substack