Dataset corresponding to the « Reasons for concern » about climate change impacts from all IPCC reports (TAR to AR6)

• Main Author: Marbaix, Philippe
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Climate change; Climate change impacts; Reasons for concern; IPCC; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/8174853; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8174853

This data corresponds to all the "burning embers" diagrams for the "Reasons for Concern" published in IPCC reports (and the related paper Smith et al. 2009 for AR4) until AR6 (thus including TAR, AR4, AR5, SR1.5 and AR6). For TAR to SR1.5, the data is the result of extracting information from the original figures, as presented in the related technical document 10.5281/zenodo.3992856. As also explained in the Supplementary Information of Zommers et al. (2020), the data does not come directly from the IPCC, although it is based on the assessment provided in the IPCC reports listed in the references. For IPCC AR6, the source is the supplementary material of chapter 16. Details regarding specific values provided in the dataset are explained alongside the values in the main file: "RFCs-ALL-2023_05_12.xlsx". The main file includes the parameters needed to produce a diagram that supplements figure 3 from Zommers et al. (2020) with AR6 data and the confidence levels from previous reports when available. The Excel files in RFCs-2023-UsageExamples.zip contain the same data with different parameters, so that uploading these files to the Ember Factory (https://climrisk.org/emberfactory) produces different figures - including a comparison between AR5 and AR6 (as in IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report, but with AR5 confidence levels included). The resulting diagrams are also provided. As indicated in the Synthesis report of AR6 (IPCC, 2023), improved scientific understanding with time generally resulted in shifting risk level changes to lower global mean surface temperature changes (so that risks are higher at a given temperature). This is consistent with the conclusion made in Zommers et al. (2020) for the assessments up to SR1.5. A (relative) exception illustrated in this dataset is the change from SR1.5 to AR6 for RFC5 (large scale singular events): the transition to high risk starts at 1.0°C in SR1.5 and 1.5°C in AR6, most probably related, at least in part, to the assessment of ice-sheet related risks (AR6, chapter 16, section ...