© crown copyright met office climate impacts the met office experience inika taylor, 2 nd acre...

© Crown copyright Met Office

Climate ImpactsThe Met Office ExperienceInika Taylor, 2nd ACRE workshop, SEQLD 03/04/09


Contents

This presentation covers the following areas

• Overview of Climate Impacts

• The work we do

• A risk-based approach


Overview of Climate Impacts


The Met Office

• Provide weather and climate forecasts and other environmental services.

• Trading Fund of the MoD

• Employs over 1,700 people

• Essential services for government departments

• Commercial services for the private sector

• Met Office Hadley Centre for climate change research


The Met Office Hadley Centre

Provide science that underpins policy

• Monitoring global and national climate

• Understanding the climate system and representing it in climate models

• Attributing recent change to causes

• Predicting future change and impacts

• Providing advice to government and business


Separation between climate and impacts science, and between different impacts areas

Climate change

Impacts


Need greater integration


Climate Impacts Team

Global and Regional Climate models Impacts

assessments

Application of Hadley Centre Science to customer requirements

Aim: world leading integrated impacts modelling and tools


The Team


The work we do


From projections to detailed impacts

Present

Future

national

regional

Climate variables: e.g. temp; pressure; rainfall

Heatwaves, drought health, agriculture

Local flooding flood defence, health

global


The Thames barrier: Thames Estuary 2100 project

• London is vulnerable to flooding and there are around £80billion of assets at risk

• Barrier flood closure is triggered when a combination of high tides are forecast in the North Sea and high river flows forecast at the tidal limit

• The TE2100 project provided climate change projections to inform planning for the barrier’s future. EA assessed what defence would be needed for different water levels and Met Office assessed likelihood of exceeding different threshold levels.

© Crown copyright Met Office© Crown copyright 2008

Energy Industry


Extreme Value Analysis

• Transport

• Water industry

• Insurance industry


Dawlish Railway line

• Coastal impact estimations for the 2020's, 2050's and 2080's at Dawlish, Devon.

Giving estimates of extreme sea level and wave height for the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s to calculate likely effect on coastal railway line.

Assessing risks – Increasing resilience


Potential decreases

in many crop yields

Increased death and

illness from heatwaves

& spread of water-borne

& vector-borne diseases

Sea level rise & storm

surges put coastal

populations at risk

Rainforests die

back,

emitting carbon into

the atmosphere

Energy generation,

distribution & demand

affected by rising

temperatures

Changes in

fish stocks

Increasing productivity of pasture

land but desertification an

increasing problem

Water stress increases

throughout 21st century,

especially areas reliant

on glacier meltwater

Hydropower potential

declines as rainfall

patterns

change & glaciers

retreat

Ecosystems &

biodiversity affected

Potential increases

in soy bean crop yields

Map showing temperature increase by 2080, relative to 1961 – 1990 average, based

on medium-high emissions scenario using a Met Office Hadley Centre model

To more than 10°C

Colour change

reflects increase

in mean surface

temperature by

2080, from 1961 –

1990 average

From 0°C

Climate change

impacts in

South America


Projected increase in fire risk due to climate change

2020s 2080s

Proportion of climate model simulations projecting “high” fire risk (McArthur fire danger index)

QUMP transient ensemble, A1B “standard” concentrations ie: no carbon cycle feedback Golding and Betts (2008)

Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles


00Z 11/05/2001

Urban Heat Islands in the UK


Seasonal Tropical Storm Prediction

Forecasting the number of tropical storms:

Model output from dynamical seasonalprediction model: GloSea3

Predictors: - SSTs: Atlantic/Pacific - wind shear

Model TSs: - form above 26˚C - moisture / precip - anticyclonic vorticity

BUT: - no eye / eye-wall - rainbands - horizontal extent

- Calibration- Verification- Commercial report


Agriculture

• Representation of crops in JULES

• Development of agricultural suitability index

• Land-use conflict – agriculture vs carbon storage


Sea level rise

• Customer focussed projections of future extreme sea levels

• Exploring new technologies to increase our capabilities


Water Resources

• Decadal forecasts of river flow

• Development of water resource processes in JULES

• Climate feedbacks of land-surface management, e.g. irrigation


A risk-based approach


The benefits of risk analysis

• Risk analysis is an excellent means of communicating what climate change means to customers and providing decision relevant information

• A risk-based approach can effectively incorporate the uncertainty involved in future projections of climate change

• Risk can be a valuable tool for translating the complex results of ensemble and probabilistic climate projections


Climate Change Impacts and Risk Framework


Finally

We now know the “worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised”, it is imperative that we start managing risk in order to adapt and mitigate future changes and impacts (Key Message 1 from the International Scientific Congress in Copenhagen, March 2009)


Thank you


Comparison of projected areas of high fire risk and deforestation

2020s 2080s

Deforestation projected to take place over the 2020s


Precipitation difference (mm day-1) due to plant physiological responses to CO2


Cities in a regional climate model

No Urban Scheme Urban Scheme Difference


Land use, runoff and

interactions

• Global river flows

• Soils (carbon/nitrogen, functions)

• Land use change

• FCO impacts project with Russia

• Defra project with IGER on diffuse pollution

• Defra project with CSL, CEFAS, VLA on agricultural contaminants

Cereals - Bromyard - Herefordshire - Mecoprop

-5

0

5

10

Baseline 2080s climate only 2080s climate, crop,application

Con

cen

trat

ion

(mic

rog

/L)

2080s annual river flow - % change (IPCC SRES A2 scenario, HadGEM1 model)

Pesticide fate in agricultural ditches

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