Earth Day 2022: Google Doodle shows the devastating impact of climate change

Google is celebrating ‘Earth Day’ on Thursday (April 22, 2022) with an interactive doodle to spread knowledge about planet earth.

Today Google marks the day with a doodle to make people aware of the effects of climate change on our planet.

“Using real time-lapse imagery from Google Earth Timelapse and other sources, the Doodle shows the impact of climate change across four different locales around our planet. Stay tuned throughout the day to view these scenes, each remaining on the homepage for several hours at a time,” said the search engine giant.

The four images in the animation are from Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Sermersooqin Greenland, Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and Harz Forests in Germany’s Elend. These animations will change after every hour.

The first animation will have the image of Mt Kilimanjaro. Google has highlighted the glacier retreat at the summit of the mountain from 1986 to 2020.

The second Doodle shows a glacier retreat in Sermersooq, Greenland using the images taken every December from 2000 to 2020. The timelapse shows much of Greenland’s ice sits on land and melts into the ocean. Warming temperatures have accelerated both the melting of sea ice and Greenland’s ice sheets.

The third animation has the image of the Great Barrier Reef. It showcases coral bleaching on Lizard Island from March 2016 to May 2016.

The last animation has the image of Harz Forests in Elend, Germany. It showcases how these forests were destroyed by bark beetle infestation due to rising temperatures and severe drought from 1995 to 2020.

Earth Day is an annual event celebrated on April 22 every year to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It was first celebrated in 1970 and now it includes events coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network in more than 193 countries.

The year 2022 marks the 52nd anniversary of the annual celebrations of ‘Earth Day’.