The Prime Meridian: A Climate Journey's Guide

Tourists visit the prime meridian, which separates East and West, at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.

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Madhulika Sikka, NPR /

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An invisible line running through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, marks the prime meridian — dividing the world into East and West. This unseen but very real line, extending from the North Pole to the South Pole, will also be a guide to NPR's yearlong Climate Connections series, a look at how people are changing Earth's climate, and how climate is changing people.

Tourists come to Greenwich from around the world to straddle this line. This place is also where we measure time and where Greenwich Mean Time gets its name.

The Climate Connections series, in collaboration with National Geographic, will look at a variety of places where climate has had a big impact. Here are just a few of those places:

• Amid a 50-year drought in the West African country of Mali, women dip their buckets into a muddy channel to scoop up water for their vegetable gardens. A huge lake next to their town has dried up.
• On the other side of the world, off the coast of Fiji, the waters are getting warmer — and higher. This could change the lives of millions of people who live surrounded by the sea.
• Just below the Pyrenees in Spain, a parched field of alfalfa symbolizes other changes. Two years ago, when this area had its worst drought in decades, farmers argued and anguished over which fields to save, and which to let dry up.
• If you walk the prime meridian all the way down to the bottom, you hit the thick ice of Antarctica. Some scientists predict it will warm up in coming decades. If too much ice melts here, people around the world could see the water rise and flood their homes.

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