30:T940,# Data sources and notes for “Will global warming make temperature less deadly?” This notebook contains links to the data sources used in the story “[Will global warming make temperature less deadly?](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/hot-cold-extreme-temperature-deaths/)”, published in The Washington Post on Feb. 16, 2023. The data sources are as follows: - Researchers supported by the Climate Impact Lab projected death rates due to temperature, which are available from the United Nations Development Programme’s [Human Climate Horizons page](https://horizons.hdr.undp.org/#/what-is-hch). Death rates by country are [here](https://www.dropbox.com/s/qpxg51eoxg4lizy/IMPACTS%20country-level.zip?dl=0), while death rates by smaller geographic units called impact regions are [here](https://www.dropbox.com/s/1i5wiv9b6jhxz6t/IMPACTS%20regions.zip?dl=0). - [The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs](https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Standard/MostUsed/) has a dataset of historical and projected populations, which I used to perform per capita calculations. - [The World Bank](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD) maintains a database of countries’ gross domestic products over time. - [The World Bank’s Climate Change Knowledge Portal](https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/download-data) has a database that includes average annual temperature by country over time. - I also used data that was emailed to me by Qi Zhao, a professor in the department of epidemiology at Shandong University, and one of the lead authors on the paper describing how temperature-linked deaths changed between 2000 and 2019. The lead authors of that paper did not grant me permission to share their data publicly. To see how I used the data to make the graphics in the article, please see these notebooks: - [The map](https://observablehq.com/d/5d503d00f238dc78) showing how death rates linked to temperature are projected to change by the end of the century. Warning: This one takes a long time to load. - [The scatter plot](https://observablehq.com/d/9f84e2db46609799) comparing countries’ average temperature vs. projected change in temperature-related deaths per 100,000 people31:Taf3,The researchers projected future temperature-linked mortality under two emissions scenarios: a high-emissions scenario called RCP8.5 and a lower-emissions scenario called RCP4.5. In the article, the graphics show data under RCP4.5 because climate scientists tell me that RCP8.5 is less likely. However, in the notebooks above, I included a toggle so that you can see the projections under RCP8.5. Below, you will find excerpts of my correspondence with a few scientists on the subject. Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, on a Zoom call: >> I don't have a problem with people using RCP8.5 in the right situations. There are reasons why you'd want to use a strong forcing scenario. I think that, based on my reading, my talking to people and ... reading the literature, I think RCP4.5 is more likely. That's kind of the business as usual. Zeke Hausfather, climate lead at Stripe, Inc., contributor for Carbon Brief, and research scientist at Berkeley Earth, in a Twitter message: >> Most assessments of current policy outcomes (e.g. by the IEA, UNEP, and Climate Action Tracker) find that we are heading for a tad under 3C (say, 2.6C to 2.9C) in a current policy world. This is above RCP4.5 (which comes in around 2.4C) but well below RCP8.5 (which is 4.7C)... So ultimately, just focusing on RCP4.5 would understate risk, while using RCP8.5 would overstate it. Given the choice between the two, I'd probably focus on RCP4.5 (portraying it as consistent with a world where countries meet their 2030 Paris Commitments) but show the 8.5 numbers as a worst case outcome where we get unlucky with climate system responses and roll back some existing policy. Jennifer Faye Morris, principal research scientist at the MIT Energy Initiative, on a Zoom call: >> [RCP8.5] is very outdated, completely unrealistic... Action is being taken, although slowly and much more slowly than ideal. But the 8.5 scenario doesn't seem like it's on the table any longer. Hannah Ritchie, deputy editor and science outreach lead at Our World in Data who holds a Ph.D. in Geosciences from the University of Edinburgh, in an email: >> I would definitely show RCP4.5. RCP8.5 is incredibly unrealistic, and very outdated. Robert Rohde, lead scientist at Berkeley Earth, in an email: >>I've largely stopped showing materials based on RCP8.5 in my public presentations, and I would generally encourage others to avoid it as well. While there continue to be some academic uses for such materials, it is too easy to mislead general audiences when presenting materials based on RCP8.5... The assumptions underlying RCP8.5 are so much more extreme than where we now think that we are heading, that it isn't very useful when trying to inform the public.32:[] 2e:{"title":"Data sources and notes for “Will global warming make temperature less deadly?”","cells":[{"id":0,"value":"$30","pinned":false,"hidden":false,"mode":"md"},{"id":25,"value":"$31","pinned":false,"hidden":false,"mode":"md"}],"files":"$W32","stdlib":"1","titling":"auto"}