From Snowpiercer to The Day After Tomorrow, countless movies and series have put forward their vision of how climate change might reshape the world. Worryingly, scientists predict that the reality might be far more shocking than anything imagined by a Hollywood studio. Now, artificial intelligence (AI) reveals what this might look like. With Google's ImageFX AI image generator, MailOnline has used the latest scientific research to predict how the world will be in 2100.

As greenhouse gas levels continue to increase, scientists predict that entire cities will be plunged under water. Meanwhile, climbing temperatures and punishing heatwaves could kill millions of people around the globe. Professor Julienne Stroeve, a climate scientist from University College London, told MailOnline: 'The largest impacts that affect all of us are sea level rise and changes in weather extremes.

'All of these will increase through the century if we do not do anything to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.'. Scientists say that the real impacts of climate change could be far more shocking than anything imagined in a Hollywood studio. Now AI has revealed what that might look like. Scientists have known for years that human-caused climate change is leading to a warmer climate. As greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane build up in the atmosphere, they act like a blanket covering the planet, trapping heat from the sun and leading to rising temperatures.

This year, the Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record, reaching an average surface temperature of 15.1°C (59.2°F). Last year was also the first year when average temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above the pre-industrial record. In the future, scientists predict that temperatures will continue to get hotter on average. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) makes predictions about future climate change based on three different scenarios.

In the most optimistic scenario, the world achieves net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050, preventing any more significant increases in global temperatures. Scientists predict that global temperatures could rise by as much as 4.4°C (7.92°F) above the pre-industrial average in the worst-case scenario. This would lead to widespread drought in water-shortage-prone countries like France. Hotter. Wilder weather. Higher sea levels.

More wildfires. More polluted air. Millions dead. In the middle scenario, CO2 emissions stay around current levels until the mid-century before declining towards net-zero by 2100. Meanwhile, in the very high emissions scenario, the world does not take measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions and CO2 levels actually increase by 2100. The IPCC predicts that global temperatures will be 2.7°C (4.86°F) higher than the pre-industrial average by 2100 in the medium scenario and 4.4°C (7.92°F) higher in the worst-case scenario.

In either of these scenarios, it could trigger widespread droughts with devastating impacts. In a report last year, the UN warned that the spread of dry, arid areas was an 'existential crisis' threatening billions around the globe. Since 1990, arid regions have expanded by an area a third larger than India and now cover 40 per cent of the Earth's land excluding Antarctica. If nothing is done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the number of people living in drylands will more than double from 2.3 billion to 5 billion in 2100.

Likewise, one 2023 paper predicted that the risk of 'flash droughts', in which drought conditions occur abnormally fast, will increase from 32 per cent to 53 per cent in Europe by 2100. That means that countries like France which already struggle with systematic water shortages are more likely to face devastating droughts. As the atmosphere gets warmer over the next 75 years, the seas will also begin to warm.

In the 1980s, scientists recorded that ocean temperatures were rising at a rate of about 0.06°C per decade. However, a recent study by experts from the University of Reading found that the rate has surged to a whopping 0.27°C per decade. Looking ahead, the researchers say is 'plausible' that the ocean temperature increase seen over the past 40 years will be exceeded in just the next 20 years. In turn, that will lead to potentially devastating impacts for all life on Earth.

Professor Stroeve says: ‘Summer sea ice for sure will be gone well before 2100 but there will be several months of ice-free conditions, not just one month. By 2100, scientists say the Arctic will be 'unrecognisable' with sea ice totally vanishing in the summer, leaving months of ice-free waters (AI impression). Antarctic sea ice also hit near-record lows during 2024. Reduced sea ice means that less energy from the sun is reflected back out of the atmosphere, triggering even faster rates of warming.