Twenty-eighth Report Adapting Institutions to Climate Change Cm ...

Chapter 2
FORECASTING FUTURE CHANGE
2.19
2.20
The UK has significant, world-class capacity for analysing the nature and impacts of future global
and regional climate change, through the Met Office Hadley Centre16 (which conducts work on
global climate change), the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research17 (which focuses on
developing sustainable multidisciplinary responses to climate change in all parts of the world), the
UK Climate Impacts Programme18 (UKCIP, which looks at what the impacts of climate change
might be for all regions and sectors of the UK and offers tools and advice to stakeholders on how
to adapt) and numerous other research centres and academic groups throughout the country.
The UK Climate Projections (UKCP09) present new cutting-edge science in the development
of local climate change projections (Box 2B). 19 These are designed to inform policy-makers and
decision-makers about the possible changes to the climate at scales useful for different regions of
the UK. The Commission welcomes these pioneering projections. But the inevitable uncertainties
that surround the projections in UKCP09 pose considerable challenges for institutions intending
to use them to guide policies and decisions about adaptation. 20 We return to this issue later in the
chapter (2.25 and 2.31).
BOX 2B UNITED KINGDOM CLIMATE PROJECTIONS (UKCP09)
Climate science and information has improved continually over the last 30 years and the
latest advance, the 2009 UK Climate Projections (UKCP09), constitutes the fifth generation
of climate scenarios that have been produced for the UK. The latest projections are a result
of seven years’ work by the Met Office and a range of other organisations in which greater
account is taken of the large uncertainties in climate modelling. This has occurred as a result of
improvements in knowledge of climate science and in computing resources. The form of the
projections themselves has evolved as a result of the expressed needs of those who use climate
data. UKCP09 offers information on possible future climates for the UK projected to the end
of the 21st century. The intention is that the projections will provide a valuable tool for those
planning how society and the environment might change in the future. UKCP09 has been
funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Department
of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Devolved Administrations.
The projections use three different potential future emission scenarios representing low (IPCC
B1), medium (A1B) and high (A1F1) GHG emission scenarios. 21 The scenarios are based on
different potential pathways indicating how a range of factors, such as population, economic
growth and energy use might change with time. The projections have been divided into seven
overlapping 30-year time slots encompassing a period from 2010 to the end of the century,
and they use a spatial resolution of 25 km.
The information in UKCP09 can be categorised into three main sections:
Observed climate data and trends (20th and 21st century historical information on
temperature, precipitation, storminess, sea surface temperature and sea level).
Probabilistic projections for a future climate (for temperature, precipitation, air pressure,
clouds and humidity).
Marine and coastal projections (including sea level rise, storm surges, sea surface and
sub-surface temperature, salinity, currents and waves).
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