Update of the latest Met Office Climate Change work

1. © Crown copyright Met Office
© Crown copyright Met Office
Vicky Pope
September 2013
Update of the latest Met Office
Climate Change work

2. • Climate Service UK
• Evidence to underpin policy
• Examples of Climate Services
Preparing for future challenges
© Crown copyright Met Office

3. What is a Climate Service?
© Crown copyright Met Office
Climate science is now at the stage where it can
provide global services to meet the adaptation
needs of Government, businesses and the
public, at regional and local levels.
From Science to Service: the end-to-end delivery chain
Customer
Customer
requirements
Core
research
Prediction and
Climatologies
Service
delivery
Translation Service
development
Partnership
© Crown copyright Met Office

4. Evidence to underpin policy
Mitigation and adaptation© Crown copyright Met Office

5. © Crown copyright Met Office© Crown copyright Met Office

6. What does the
future hold?
RCP 8.5 - business as usual
RCP 2.6 - low carbon economy
Single model. IPCC will have a quantitative
assessment based on all models
© Crown copyright Met Office

7. Oct 2010 – March 2012 Rainfall
% of 1971-2000 average
2 dry winters
Extreme weather
From drought...

8. Summer 2012 Rainfall
% of 1971-2000 average
Extreme weather
...to flood
Wettest June on
record
(180% of average)
3rd wettest summer on
record for Wales
(240% of average)

9. Important processes
• North Atlantic weather – North Atlantic Oscillation/ jet stream
• Tropical Pacific weather – El Nino
• Arctic Sea ice retreat

10. Best long-
term climate
models,
UKCP09
State-of-art
seasonal
model
Current
global
weather
forecasting
Current UK
weather
forecasting
+ ground-
breaking
climate
work
Mountains(130km grid)
Mountains(60km grid)
1.5km resolution climate model
Resolution of Welsh terrain
Mountains(25km grid)
Mountains(1.5km grid)
© Crown copyright Met Office

11. Translation and services© Crown copyright Met Office

12. Little risk:
Action unlikely to be
required
Possible risk:
Action where assets
already close to design
limits
Some understanding:
More work to quantify
risks
Probable risk:
Action likely to be
required for most assets
Coastal
infrastructure
Wind
CCGTs
Trans-
Formers
Urban &
Rural
Cabels
North &
South
Network
design
Line rating
Network
Resilience
Climatology
for demand
forecasting
2010| 2020| 2030| 2040| 2050| 2060| 2070|
Climate change adaptation guide for Energy Phase 2 project

13. Virtual Met Mast (VMM™)
© Crown copyright Met Office
• An advanced wind-energy site-screening and planning tool
• Predicts wind statistics
• Any hub height
• Onshore and Offshore
• Virtual climatology for several decades
• Uses high resolution wind fields
• UK 4km model data
• ECMWF Interim Reanalyses
• Satellite data vital component of both
• Takes into account surface roughness and orography
• Cheaper and quicker than direct measurement on-site

14. Virtual Met Mast (VMM™)
Underpinning
Science
Service Enabler
Service
development
Service delivery
Partners Met Office
Stakeholders Renewable wind energy industry, potentially insurance industry (commodity
trading, alternative risk transfer)
Geographical
Scope
UK, Europe
Temporal
Outlook
Currently 23 years of historical wind data
Services &
tools
• Advanced wind-energy site-screening and planning tool
• Monthly time series of winds at specified locations at required mast heights
• Local mean wind maps
© Crown copyright Met Office

15. What is a Climate Service?
Climate science is now at the stage where it can
provide global services to meet the adaptation
needs of Government, businesses and the
public, at regional and local levels.
From Science to Service: the end-to-end delivery chain
Core
research
Prediction and
Climatologies
Translation Service
development
Service
delivery
Customer
© Crown copyright Met Office Customer
requirements
Partnership

16. Contribution to IPCC

17. © Crown copyright Met Office

18. Global average temperatures
(including latest observations)

19. Hiatus in warming: Possible contributions
Met Office Hiatus report (IPCC AR5 will contain synthesised results)
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/recent-pause-in-warming
• Natural variability: models have 10-15 year periods with no
warming or even cooling
• Incoming radiation: reduction of 0.6 Wm-2 needed to explain
pause. Maximum possible is 0.3 Wm-2
• Recent decrease in stratospheric water vapour: traps less heat: up to
0.1Wm-2
• Change in man-made aerosols: little net effect
• Volcanic eruptions: not enough during period
• Extended solar minimum: less than 0.2Wm-2
• Ocean changes: could be a major contributor
• Ocean heat content, sea-level rise observations: Earth system continued
to absorbed heat
• Additional heat appears to have been absorbed in the ocean.
• Increased exchange to deep ocean appears to have caused at least part
of the pause in surface warming,
• Observations indicate that Pacific Ocean may play a key role.

21. Representative comparison
between CMIP3 and 5
models (scaled using simple
models)
Climate model projections CMIP5
Global surface temperature (single study, AR5 will contain synthesised results)
Knutti and Sedláček, 2013
© Crown copyright Met Office

22. Climate model projections CMIP5
Preciptation (single study, AR5 will contain synthesised results)
Knutti and Sedláček, 2013
December - February
June - August
Stippling – high robustness
Hatching – no significant change
White – models inconsistent