Scenarios of shifts in GEnS bioclimate strata based on CIMP5 climate change scenarios for 2050

This dataset provides an alternative representation of global climate change projections based on shifts in the 125 multivariate strata of the Global Environmental Stratification (Metzger et al. 2013), which are characterised by relatively homogeneous climate. These strata form climate analogues that help in the interpretation of climate change impacts. A Random Forest classifier was calculated and applied to 63 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) climate scenarios at 5 arcmin resolution. The dataset summarises future environmental change for 2050 and forms a middle ground, conveniently integrating current knowledge of climate change impact with the interpretation advantages of categorical data but with a level of detail that resembles a continuous surface at global and regional scales.