Climate data analysis: population weighted global temperature 📈

I wondered what the daily [land] high temperature experienced by the average human on Earth might be.

The maximum in 2023 was on July 11 at 86.2°F 🌡️

But, that is NOT a record high.

June 24, 2009: 86.7°F

July 14, 2002: 86.6°F

June 20, 2005: 86.5°F

This analysis combines a gridded population dataset with 2020 vintage including 8-billion people at 1-kilometer spacing, interpolated on top of 10-kilometer ERA5-Land temperature data. The grids are multiplied and then divided by the total population going backwards in time, keeping the population footprint fixed. It's an imperfect counterfactual because the urban heat island effect is removed, but that is sort of what we want. In 1980, there were 4.5 Billion people on Earth and now there are 8 Billion +

What's astounding is that even with a near doubling of global population and urbanization, the average temperature experienced by a given human during the year has remained remarkably stable between 75°F and 76°F since at least 1980. Earth's population is not distributed evenly across the surface of the planet, of course.

Global temperature vs. population weighted metrics = real impacts of temperature to humans.

Global population weighted high temperatures