London scoping - ukcip

Final Report
50
Sea Level
Rates of change in mean sea level around the UK depend on natural land movements as well as
on the thermal expansion of the world’s oceans and melting of land glaciers. By the 2080s the
net sea-level rise (taking vertical land movements into account) for London may be 26 cm under
the Low Emissions scenario and 86 cm under the High Emissions scenario, relative to 1961-
1990. These values were derived using the low end of the Low Emissions scenario (9 cm
global sea-level rise) and the high end of the High Emissions scenario (69 cm rise), plus an
assumed vertical land change of 1.5 cm/decade. However, most coastal damage is caused
during storm surges. According to the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory model, the 1 in 50
year extreme sea level increases by more than 1.1 metres by the 2080s under the Medium-High
Emissions scenario. Unfortunately, much uncertainty is associated with this result, because the
projections depend very much on the particular ocean model used.
Other Variables
Tables 4.5 and 4.6 provide summary information on projected changes in other climate
variables for the south-east. By the 2080s, cloud cover may decrease in summer by more than
15% for the High Emissions scenario, with concomitant increases in summer sunshine.
Summer relative humidities reduce by 10% or more for the High Emissions scenario, with
fewer fog days expected in winter. Wind speeds are highly problematic to estimate from
climate models, however, the UKCIP02 scenarios suggest that more frequent depressions cross
the UK in winter leading to stronger winds in southern England. Finally, average soil moisture
will decrease by 40% or more under the High Emissions scenario, and by about 20% for the
Low Emissions scenario.
4.4 Climate Change Analogues
The future weather will continue to display much natural year-to-year and decade-to-decade
variability. Indeed, for some aspects of climate, such as precipitation, natural variations are
expected to be greater than changes due to increased greenhouse gas emissions until the second
half of the 21 st century. One helpful approach to visualising future probabilities of selected
seasonal climate extremes is to describe their occurrence with reference to Table 4.3 events in
the past. Climate change analogues are thus constructed by identifying climate records that
could typify the future climate of the region. A major advantage of the approach is that the
future climate scenario (and accompanying environmental impacts) may be described in far
greater temporal and spatial detail than might otherwise be possible (see Subak et al., 1999).
For example, the hot/dry summer of 1995 and the wet winter of 1994/95, provide useful
analogues of the projected climate of the 2050s (Table 4.7). Thus, by the 2050s, the ‘1995-type’
summer might be expected to occur in one year out of five, and by the 2080s, two in every three
years.