UK Climate Projections 09

The waiting is over and today saw DEFRA publish the UK Climate Projections. There is a comprehensive introductory website and a more detailed technical one where the data can be manipulated to meet the users needs. The Guardian summarises the headline findings: warmer drier summers and wetter winters along with many more extreme weather events, as follows.

The introduction to the project states

The UK Climate Projections (UKCP09) give climate information for the UK up to the end of this century. Projections of future changes to our climate are provided, based on simulations from climate models.

The purpose of providing information on the possible future climate is to help those needing to plan how they will adapt to help society and the natural environment to cope with a changing climate.

The Projections show three different scenarios representing high, medium and low greenhouse gas scenarios – and and this can help to demonstrate the importance of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation).

The data is presented in a variety of ways but maps perhaps show the projections most clearly.

The website states the following

These maps give a range of climate that we might expect, together with the probability of different outcomes based on the strength of evidence. The central estimate is given by the centre map. The changes are very unlikely to be less than the left hand map, and very unlikely to be more than the right hand map.

Click here to see the maps for summer and winter precipitation along with summer temperature which demonstrates the above explanation.

You will need to spend some time playing with the technical website to find out exactly what data it can produce for either the whole country, a region or a 25km grid square. There are many climate variables. Without doubt this is a major step forwards in probabilistic modelling and the UK must now have the best dataset of any country in the world about what is likely to happen as a result of climate change.

Many many organisations will now start using this data to prepare for the future - the UKCP09 website gives a few simple case studies which highlights various applications.

The critical thing that is needed now is action. David King, the former government chief scientist asks whether there will be the political will to act. Watch this space!