Projected increases in exposure to climate extremes across global vertebrate diversity hotspots

Climate change intensifies climate extremes globally, threatening biodiversity. Vertebrates vulnerable to climate extremes are identified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), though future changes in exposure to climate extremes for these species remain unclear. Using CMIP6 climate models under four Shared Socio-economic Pathways, we projected changes in extreme drought, heat, and precipitation frequencies globally between 1974–2014 and 2050–2090 for 1,634 terrestrial vertebrates considered threatened by climate extremes, focusing on 33 global vertebrate diversity hotspots. Results indicate substantial increases in climate extremes, with tropical regions facing the highest increases in extreme heat and drought. Hotspots with few climate extreme-threatened vertebrates often face the highest increases in climate extreme frequencies, suggesting vertebrate vulnerability within numerous hotspots is understudied. These results highlight the need to incorporate climate..., We used global standardized precipitation index (SPI) and temperature data to calculate past and future climate extreme occurrence. To this end, we used four Global Climate Models (GCM) and four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP), for a historical and future period, from CMIP6 projections.  We analyzed changes in drought exposure across species ranges considered by IUCN to be threatened by three types of climate extremes, and across 33 global vertebrate diversity hotspots holding about 85% of global vertebrate diversity., , # Projected increases in exposure to climate extremes across global vertebrate diversity hotspots

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.sn02v6xf9](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.sn02v6xf9)

## Description of the data and file structure

There are three scripts associated with this analysis:

**1.Rawdata_Processing.R** - Contains all code necessary to transform the raw climate data from C3S repository of CMIP6 data into monthly rasters.
-Associated files: none

**2.Change_calculations.R** -  Contains all code necessary to transform the SPI and Temperature data for historical and future periods into rasters of change climate extremes.
-Associated files: none

**3.Fig 1** - Contains all code necessary to run the analysis used to obtain the results and result visualizations.

**4.Fig 2** - Contains all code necessary to run the analysis used to obtain the results and result visualizations.

**5.Fig 3** - Contains all code necessary to run the analysis used to obtain the results and result visualiz...,