Visualizing Climate Worlds: Data, AI, and Immersive Futures

Thanks to a proliferation of climate data, processed and interpreted with AI tools and new visualization methods, we can recognize new patterns in our relationship with our cities and our planet, predict extreme events or future hazards, and inform the hard work of climate adaptation and mitigation. Visualizing Climate Worlds brings together three projects that turn data into new ways of seeing — and living in — a changing planet. The Better Planet Laboratory at CU Boulder uses satellite data, sensors, and AI to monitor global food and environmental systems, transforming planetary-scale information into early-warning and decision tools for a more resilient, equitable future. MIT’s Urban Metabolism Environmental Research and Action Lab (UMERA) applies Material Flow Analysis and machine learning to 11,000+ cities worldwide, surfacing productive and sometimes unexpected climate “sister-city” networks and modeling how they converge on unique sustainability paths to 2050. And BEAM Studio’s TIDELANDS 2100 draws on NOAA flood models and the oral histories of Rhode Island’s coastal residents to build immersive VR worlds of adaptation in place. Together they move from planetary monitoring to urban comparison to lived experience, asking: once we can model and see a changing planet, how do we choose to live in it? More information, speakers, and event program This event is part of Assembly, the main Swiss stage at Climate Week NYC 2026. As world leaders gather in Midtown Manhattan, Swissnex assembles Swiss and global voices – from private sector innovators and researchers to artists and policymakers – in the East Village for three days of communal climate thinking and action. Assembly speaks to deliberation and democracy – the idea that communities must collectively define their futures – as well as the ongoing, creative, improvisational process of constructing those futures from the pieces of our present.