High-resolution African population projections from radiative forcing and socio-economic models, 2000 to 2100

For its fifth assessment report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change divided future scenario projections (2005–2100) into two groups: Socio-Economic Pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). Each SSP has country-level urban and rural population projections, while the RCPs are based on radiative forcing caused by greenhouse gases, aerosols and associated land-use change. In order for these projections to be applicable in earth system models, SSP and RCP population projections must be at the same spatial scale. Thus, a gridded population dataset that takes into account both RCP-based urban fractions and SSP-based population projection is needed. To support this need, an annual (2000–2100) high resolution (approximately 1km at the equator) gridded population dataset conforming to both RCPs (urban land use) and SSPs (population) country level scenario data were created.