A living dashboard for the forces reshaping our world.
Tracking Artificial Intelligence, Climate Change, Renewable Energy & Biotechnology - interactive data, plain-English explainers & sourced articles.
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Explore Climate Data
FAQs
FAQs
What is 4 Billion Years On?
A science journalism site that makes data on climate, energy, AI, biotech and planetary health accessible to everyone. We combine monthly-updated interactive dashboards with in-depth articles written by science journalists. Everything is free and no registration is required.
What climate dashboards and tools are on the site?
The Climate Data Hub covers temperature and rainfall for 160+ countries, US states and UK regions. Specialist tools include the Global Climate Update, Climate Rankings, Shifting Seasons, the 4byo Climate Helix (temperature spirals), 4byo Climate Symphony (compound climate drivers), the ENSO Tracker (El Nino and La Nina), the NAO Tracker, and the Stratospheric Polar Vortex tracker. A Climate Dashboard gives headline global indicators at a glance.
What energy dashboards are available?
The Energy Dashboard tracks electricity generation mix by country - renewables, fossil fuels, nuclear and hydro. Energy Rankings compare countries by clean-energy share. Greenhouse Gases tracks CO2, methane and N2O concentrations from ice cores to today. The Emissions page covers global and per-country CO2 output.
What are the planetary and Earth-system dashboards?
Sea Levels and Ice covers ocean heat, sea level rise and Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent. Planetary Boundaries tracks all nine Earth-system thresholds defined by researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, including climate, biodiversity, freshwater and novel entities.
What does the Extreme Weather page show?
The Extreme Weather page combines live GDACS disaster alerts (floods, earthquakes, storms, wildfires) with long-term EM-DAT trends showing how the frequency and severity of extreme events has changed since 1960.
What are the AI and Biotech dashboards?
The AI Dashboard tracks key capability benchmarks, model releases and compute trends. The Biotech Dashboard covers breakthrough research, clinical trial milestones and regulatory approvals across genomics, gene therapy, longevity and synthetic biology.
What are the Explained pages?
Each topic area has an Explained section - Climate Explained, Energy Explained, AI Explained and Biotech Explained. These provide plain-English guides to the science and concepts behind the data on this site, including glossaries and key explainers.
What are the book pages?
We curate reading lists of the best science books by topic: Climate Books, Energy Books, AI Books and Biotech Books. Each page summarises the most important titles for readers who want to go deeper than the dashboards.
How often is the data updated?
Most climate and energy dashboards update monthly as source agencies (NOAA, Met Office, Our World in Data, CRU, Ember) publish new readings. Extreme weather alerts update in near-real-time. Articles publish as events warrant.
Are the site and articles free?
Yes. All articles, dashboards and tools on 4 Billion Years On are free to use. No subscription or registration is required.