What are the UKCP18 climate projections?
This page gives both background information about climate change in the UK and the specific set of projections that we will be looking at.
You can find more details about the structure of the data and the available variables here.
Overview
UKCP is a climate analysis tool that forms part of the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme. The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) support the UKCP in collaboration with the Environment Agency.
A quick introduction to UKCP, published during its launch in November 2018:
What information do the UKCP climate projections provide?
For a quick tour of the information available in UKCP:
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| What information is available? | How were the projections produced? |
You may also find the following slideset and infographic helpful:
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| Overview slide pack | UKCP over land surface |
Where do I find the data?
We do not expect you to download the UKCP18 dataset yourself. Instead we have curated a version of it on a UCL machine for you to access. Details of how to do are provided on the resources page. However, the Met Office has made the UKCP18 data freely available for everyone to download if they want to. Instructions are available here - you must register for an account with CEDA first.
Where to find out more
The UK Climate Projections web pages on the Met Office website also provides much of the information that you need to start using climate information. This includes infographics, headline findings, factsheets, guidance as well as science reports and technical notes (see here).
There are also more videos about UKCP in this YouTube playlist.
Carbon Brief is a really nice website and news channel about climate change. They have an in-depth feature on UKCP18.
Existing visualisations
The UKCP18 database has found its way into many different reports and tools. Here are a few:
- Postcode tool about extremes featured on the BBC News
- Download tool. The distribution interface for the data includes some plotting options
- [Active ]
- National Trust Impacts. The National Trust has added some ArcGIS layers about climate risks, into which UKCP18 feeds.