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Even if we drastically cut our greenhouse emissions now, past emissions mean that some climate change is inevitable, so we need to adapt the way we live and work to cope with a future that involves hotter, drier summers, warmer wetter winters and increased frequency of severe weather events such as heat waves, droughts and floods. Making timely and proportionate changes to how we do things, to make sure that our investments, such as housing and energy infrastructure, last for as long as they possibly can makes good sense – effective decisions now can save money in the long-run. UKCP09 is the latest cutting edge science and is the best tool yet to help us plan and prepare for a future with climate change.

Producing the Projections cost about £11 million in total, paid out of Defra's and DECC's research budgets.

No, UKCP09 is free to use. The information will be presented in various ways, to suit people's needs. Key findings and pre-prepared maps and graphs will help everybody understand the key messages about how our climate will change. Technical tools will then help decision-makers and researchers get to the greater level of detail that they need. The guidance provided on the UKCP09 technical site will help people to make the right decision about how the information can help them, and how to get the best from it.

The UK Climate Projections show the probability of different outcomes of change, where the probability is based strength of evidence for different outcomes using a particular methodology. The Projections on their own are not a planning tool. But, combined with other information on other issues, they help make effective long-term plans.

The probabilistic projections in UKCP09 are designed to express averages over 30-year periods, starting with the period 2010–2039 (the 2020s); they do not look at year to year variability within these time periods.

It is difficult to provide information from a climate model on climate change in the near term (the next few years). Climate models cannot accurately do this because much of what will happen is heavily dominated by year-to-year variability: so even though the trend in the climate over a 30-year period is one of warming, there can be, for example, cold winters and dull summers, perhaps for several years in a row.

The interpretation of probability generally falls into two broad categories. The first type of probability relates to the expected frequency of occurrence of some outcome, over a large number of independent trials carried out under the same conditions: for example the chance of getting a five (or any other number) when rolling a dice is 1 in 6, that is, a probability of about 17%. This is not the meaning of the probabilities supplied in UKCP09, as there can only be one pathway of future climate. In UKCP09, we use the second type where probability is a measure of the degree to which a particular level of future climate change is consistent with the information used in the analysis, that is, the evidence. In UKCP09, this information comes from observations and outputs from a number of climate models, all with their associated uncertainties. The methodology which allows us to generate probabilities is based on large numbers (ensembles) of climate model simulations, but adjusted according to how well different simulations fit historical climate observations in order to make them relevant to the real world. The user can give more consideration to climate change outcomes that are more consistent with the evidence, as measured by the probabilities. One important consequence of the definition of probability used in UKCP09 is that the probabilistic projections are themselves uncertain, because they are dependent on the information used and how the methodology is formulated.

When planning an adaptation strategy, it is good practice to put in place measures that are robust across a range of probability levels. Probabilities have been included in UKCP09 to give users an indication of the strength of evidence for different climate outcomes. This should help users to make decisions on how to adapt to climate change, dependent on the risks they have to manage.

Yes. Defra organised an expert review of the methodologies used in the probabilistic projections, marine projections and the weather generator. A workshop with the reviewers followed this in January 2009. They confirmed that the methodologies used in UKCP09 were credible and represented a large step beyond UKCIP02 (an earlier set of climate change information), whilst noting that the techniques used are complex and require explanation and guidance.

Providing a range of results rather than single best estimate values, and the inclusion of an assessment of uncertainty is a central feature of the new projections and gives users a much more detailed picture about the level of confidence they can have in different outcomes as well as encouraging a flexible approach to be able to deal with a range of future climates. 

Attaching probabilities to different parts of the range of outcomes helps people to see which parts of the range are more likely and which less so, which helps to put a large range of results in context.

Of course, the probabilities cannot include every aspect of uncertainty. To ensure that users understand what has and has not been factored in to produce the results, users will be given guidance on the methodology used for the projections. This should enable users to analyse whether UKCP09, or another tool, is appropriate for the problem they are trying to address, so that they can make an informed adaptation decision.

The width of the ranges in UKCP09 are substantial even for the next few decades, due mainly to natural variability, and grow larger through the century due to uncertainties in climate feedbacks. It is unlikely that the range of any new results produced by climate projections in the next few years will be outside the current range. The UKCP09 methodology is designed to capture known uncertainties in the climate system built into the current generation of climate models, and is the most comprehensive approach to do so to date. For decisions that need to be made on the basis of current knowledge, the Projections are appropriate, and they make a useful contribution to assessing risks posed by future climate.

The amount of greenhouse gas emissions that are emitted into the atmosphere over the next few decades could follow a number of different pathways, depending on global mitigation efforts. The emissions scenarios provided in UKCP09 give three possible future pathways for emissions that do not include planned mitigation measures, though they do include technological and economic change that has an impact on levels of emissions. The UKCP09 emissions scenarios are based on the IPCC SRES. If the world is successful at mitigating climate to maintain global temperatures below 2ºC, it is likely that none of the emissions scenarios used in UKCP09 will be realised. However, it is prudent to plan adaptation strategies that are robust across a range of future climates.

Modelling of future climate change requires estimation of future levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Future greenhouse gas emissions are the product of very complex dynamic systems, determined by factors such as population change, socio-economic development, and technological advances.

The importance of emissions scenarios on future climate becomes increasingly significant beyond the middle of the century.  The UKCP09 technical site has more information about emissions scenarios.

The IPCC states that probabilities cannot currently be assigned to different emissions scenarios. Therefore users should consider projections across all three of the emissions scenarios provided in UKCP09 unless there is a specific justifiable reason to focus on only one. All the UKCP09 information presented on this website uses the medium emissions scenario.

There is a commentary on emissions scenarios in Annex 1 of the UKCP09 climate change projections report. This describes relevant work that has taken place since the SRES scenarios were published. It also provides information as to what emissions scenario we are currently tracking based on a paper by Raupach et al (2007) and the caveats that go along with this research. In addition, the Committee on Climate Change published new stabilisation scenarios in 2008.

Yes, UKCIP02 provides monthly, seasonal and annual data. However, much of the information and many of the maps in Chapter 5 of the UKCIP02 Scientific Report are derived from analysis of the daily data. The raw daily data from the model have been archived and stored at the British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC).

Daily data is available from the UKCP09 Weather Generator (link). This produces time series with each daily and hourly output within the series consisting of daily mean temperature, daily temperature range, vapour pressure and sunshine duration.  From these variables are calculated potential evapotranspiration, maximum and minimum temperature, relative humidity and direct and diffuse radiation.

Although no different to the national scale output available in the UKCIP02 maps and UKCIP02 data pages of the UKCIP02 pages, regional maps of the UKCIP02 climate change scenarios output for key temperature and precipitation are available as maps on the UKCIP02 regional pages of the main UKCIP website.

 <p></p>Regional studies scoping the impacts of climate change on a regional basis (for English administrative regions and the devolved administrations) have been conducted through regional climate change partnerships. More details are available on the Work in the UK pages of the UKCIP website.



All maps can be downloaded and saved as *.gif images by right-clicking and selecting 'Save as...'. We are happy for the maps to be used and reproduced in reports and publications, but request that the source is acknowledged as follows:

Source: UKCIP02 Climate Change Scenarios (funded by Defra, produced by Tyndall and Hadley Centres for UKCIP).

Please also send a copy of any publication that uses the maps to the UKCIP office.



The 50 km data are now available as ESRI GIS shapefiles in the UKCIP02 data archive.



The 5 km data are available in ascii grid format, georeferenced to the OSGB National Grid. A header at the top of the file provides standard georeferencing information. This means that the data can be imported as a grid into GIS software such as ArcView, Idrisi or MapInfo. Refer to the GIS guidance document for further advice.


No, UKCIP02 has been superceded by the UK Climate Projections (UKCP09), but will continue to be available while they remain the standard reference for climate change assessments in the UK.

Since their release in April 2002, several projects and tools have been produced that add value or functionality to the UKCIP02 scenarios. Examples of such work can be found on the UKCIP02 extras page.

The next set of climate change scenarios for the UK (UKCP09) was launched in June 2009. They were produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre, and are funded by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). More information about UKCP09 is available on the UK Climate Projections website.



For a start, the UKCIP02 scenarios are based on a RCM allowing a much improved spatial resolution of 50 km, compared to the 300 km GCM resolution of UKCIP98. The only RCM that has been run so far using the new IPCC emissions scenarios from SRES is the Hadley Centre model HadRM3.

For the UKCIP98 scenarios, the four scenarios represented differing combinations of climate sensitivity (a measure of how a climate model predicts the atmospheric response to changing CO2 concentration) and greenhouse gas emissions. At the time of release, it was the only RCM which used the SRES emissions profiles, meaning it was not possible to vary the climate sensitivity in UKCIP02 using the same scaling techniques that were applied to the GCM results in UKCIP98. Therefore the four UKCIP02 climate scenarios represent uncertainty only due to changing future emissions profiles throughout the coming century, rather than uncertainty from different modelling schemes as expressed through the climate sensitivity measure. For this reason it is useful for impacts assessments to consider the full range of possible values by reference to the uncertainty margins in Table 5, Chapter 3 of the UKCIP02 Scientific Report.


For differences between UKCIP02 and the latest projections, UKCP09, please refer to the UK Climate Projections website.




Detailed exploration of potential changes in the magnitude and frequency of extreme events generally requires analysis of daily data, so refer to the question regarding the availability of daily data. It should also be apparent that because extreme events are infrequent in any time series, it is important, because of model uncertainty, to make use of different scenarios and ensemble members to determine genuine change.

The baseline period 1961–1990 continues to be the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) standard and retains consistency with the IPCC and UKCIP98. Of course, it would also be possible to use 1971–2000 as a baseline against which to compare future projections. This would include the 1990s which by all comparisons are an anomalous decade in terms of their temperature rise. As the full monthly time series for 1961–2000 has been made available by the Met Office as part of the UKCIP02 scenarios project, it is possible to generate a 1971–2000 baseline climatology if required. Chapter 2 of the UKCIP02 Scientific Report has more details on baseline climatologies.



The 50 km RCM data was downscaled to 5 km by using a process of simple interpolation to add the future change field onto the standard 1961–1990 5 km Met Office climatology. For all variables excepting precipitation, the actual change per 50 km cell was just added onto each 5 km cell in turn. For precipitation, because of its much greater variability due to topography (etc.), each 5 km cell was modified by the percentage change indicated by the parent 50 km RCM cell to allow for local variability.



The magnitude of sea level rise is particularly uncertain due to global uncertainties in ocean-atmosphere models, regional variations in the thermal expansion of ocean water and local isostatic adjustment.

Noting this uncertainty, the UKCIP02 Scientific Report included a table detailing regional net sea-level change based on particular emissions scenarios combined with the local effects of vertical land movements (subsidence/uplift). Subsequent improvements to estimates of isostatic adjustment for the UK have enabled this table to be updated. The updated table along with an indicative map of sea-level change for the UK is available on the UKCIP02 extras pages.

UKCP09 contains projections for both absolute sea level rise for the UK as a whole and relative sea level rise for 12 km coastal grid squares.

The uncertainties associated with predictions of future sea-level mean that it is always prudent to consider future sea level rise in terms of a range of values.



Yes. The Gulf Stream (properly termed the Thermohaline Circulation or North Atlantic Drift) carries warm upper waters northwards and returns cold water towards the equator. This ocean current is partially responsible for the UK 's relatively mild climate and is driven by the sinking of dense saline cold water off Labrador and Greenland. The Hadley Centre climate model, which includes ocean circulation, predicts that North Atlantic thermohaline circulation strength will fall under all four emissions scenarios by around 15-25% by 2100. This leads to a corresponding decrease in the amount of heat transported towards the UK, but this is more than offset by the direct greenhouse warming. As they are taken from the same experiment, this effect is taken into account in the UKCIP02 climate change scenarios. None of the standard Hadley Centre model simulations (and indeed none of the global climate models used in the IPCC Third Assessment Report ) show a complete shut-down by 2100. For more information see Chapter 7 of the UKCIP02 Scientific Report and the subsequent UKCIP guidance note Slowing of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation at 25 degrees North. Research into the Thermohaline circulation is ongoing by many research centres including the Hadley Centre and NERC (through the RAPID research programme).



Future emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities will depend upon factors such as population growth, economic development, energy use, technological change, society's attitudes and political leadership. Obviously, we cannot know how all these factors will change, and what pathways emissions will follow in the future, but we can generate possible scenarios. The IPCC did this in the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES, 2000). It considered various storylines of how the world will develop and used models to estimate the emissions profiles that would result. All of the emissions profiles are noninterventionist; that is, they assume no policies to reduce emissions for the purpose of mitigating climate change.

The UKCIP02 climate change scenarios are based on these emissions profiles. IPCC stress that it is not possible to attach probabilities to each of the emissions profiles (and hence UKCIP02 climate change scenarios), however neither can they be considered equally probable. It is best to consider the full range rather than trying to identify one scenario as the most probable. (Source: Climate Change and the Greenhouse Effect, Hadley Centre, December 2005).

In UKCP09, projections are developed under three different emissions scenarios (High Medium and Low), two of which come from the A1 storyline, and one from the B1 storyline developed by the IPCC SRES. Of these only the High and Low scenarios can be directly mapped to the UKCIP02 scenarios.