It’s easy to talk about how climate change will alter Earth’s surface in the century to come. It will raise sea levels, flood cities, and set off droughts. As this month’s dire United Nations report shows, decades of climate science have made the worldwide dangers of human-caused warming unambiguous. Yet it’s far harder to talk about how these changes will play out locally. Collecting good data is expensive, particularly if the country in question lacks financial and institutional resources, Lab's Amir Jina, of the University of Chicago, explains. In some cases, the historical gaps in climate data and the infrastructure to collect it can be made up for by technological advances and international scientific projects.