A common put-down from sceptics of global warming is, "What's a few degrees? Just normal variance." Yeah, right. As if man-made effects were simply some other kind of "natural" cycle, instead of a corruption of natural cycles.

What they don't seem to appreciate is that a global average temperature rise of, say, 5'C -- as predicted by 2100 -- is just that: an average. Different specific places will have temperature changes that differ wildly from that average.

By an oddity of climate mechanics, it is not the tropics but the North Pole and environs which will be worst affected. Northern Asia and Canada will cook -- with rises above 10'C. Nearer the pole itself this could be closer to 20'C. That is hardly just a "few degrees", and the impacts from melting ice and tundra will be immense.

To illustrate the point, The Met Office Hadley Centre, British Antarctic Survey and UK Government have harnessed Google Earth technology to present you with an interactive animation showing how climate change and global temperature rises could affect our world over the next 100 years. (You can download Google Earth for free to run the animation.)

As an unappetising taster, at top is a snapshot of the North Pole, showing the projected rise in temperatures, as at Dec 2099.