Wellcome Trust

Data is a powerful tool for understanding the health effects of climate change. That’s why we’ve mapped 120 years of climate data to show where four climate-related health risks (drought, flooding, extreme heat and disease) have been recorded. What’s crucial now is filling the gaps in the data so we can find ways to protect those communities most at risk.

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We’ve collected the latest data from two of the world’s most commonly used climate and disaster data sources and presented them in this map.

  • The International Disaster Database (EM-DAT) – provides comprehensive, global data on the impact of human disasters, including the number of events, the people killed, injured or affected and the economic damage.
  • Climatic Research Unit (CRU) – develops several data sets that are widely used in climate research, including the global temperature and precipitation records used to monitor the state of the climate system.

You can explore the data behind years of devastating drought in Brazil or witness the shocking rise in flooding across India or take a deep dive into recent climate-sensitive disease research from across the world.

But you can also see the gaps in the data.

Datasets like this are never complete. Data may not have been collected, or shared by those who collect it. The quality of data may also vary. These limitations have real-world impacts on the under-resourced field of climate and health research.