Data from: Improving access and use of climate projections for ecological research through the use of a new Python tool

Over the past decade, the use of future climate projections from the
Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) has become central in
biodiversity science. Pre-packaged datasets containing future projections
of the widely used bioclimatic variables, for different times and
socio-economic pathways, have contributed immensely to the study of
climate change implications for biodiversity. However, these datasets lack
the flexibility to obtain projections to other target years, and the use
of raw data requires coding and spatial information systems expertise. The
Python tool, chelsa-cmip6, developed by Karger et. al 2023 provides the
flexibility needed by allowing users to generate bioclimatic variables for
the time of their choice provided the selected general circulation model
and socioeconomic pathway combination exists. This is a fantastic step
forward in bringing flexibility to the use of climate datasets in
biodiversity and will allow for more widespread use of data provided by
CMIP6. We hope it also will prompt the development of more user-friendly
tools for the study of the effects of climate change on biodiversity.