Changing climate risk in the UK: A multi-sectoral analysis using policy-relevant indicators

Arnell, Nigel W.; Kay, Alison L.; Freeman, Anna; Rudd, Alison; Lowe, Jason

doi:10.1016/j.crm.2020.100265

Cited by 55 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…However, there are many uncertainties that were not included in this study, for example relating to (1) emissions scenario, (2) global climate model, (3) bias correction and downscaling methodology, (4) hydrological model structure, (5) hydrological model parameters, and (6) interactions between these uncertainty sources. Studies have shown that choice of climate model tends to be the largest source of uncertainty in hydrological climate change impact analyses (Wilby and Harris, 2006;Prudhomme and Davies, 2009;Arnell et al, 2021), especially when focussing on high flows (Kay et al, 2009;Bosshard et al, 2013;Vetter et al, 2017;De Niel et al, 2019). However, hydrological modelling uncertainties have been found to be large for some areas, particularly for low flows where the hydrological model structure can become the dominant source of uncertainty (Bosshard et al, 2013;De Niel et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Change Impact on the Magnitude and Timing of Hydrological Extremes Across Great Britain

Lane

Kay

2021

Front. Water

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Climate change could intensify hydrological extremes, changing not just the magnitude but also the timing of flood and drought events. Understanding these potential future changes to hydrological extremes at the national level is critical to guide policy decisions and ensure adequate adaptation measures are put in place. Here, climate change impact on the magnitude and timing of extreme flows is modelled across Great Britain (GB), using an ensemble of climate data from the latest UK Climate Projections product (UKCP18) and a national grid-based hydrological model. All ensemble members show large reductions in low flows, of around −90 to −25% for 10-year return period low flows by 2050–2080. The direction of change for high flows is uncertain, but increases in 10-year return period high flows of over 9% are possible across most of the country. Simultaneous worsening of both extremes (i.e., a reduction in low flows combined with an increase in high flows) are projected in the west. Changes to flow timing are also projected; with mostly earlier annual maximum flows across Scotland, later annual maximum flows across England and Wales, and later low flows across GB. However, these changes are generally not statistically significant due to the high interannual variability of annual maximum/minimum flow timing. These results highlight the need for adaptation strategies that can cope with a wide range of future changes in hydrological extremes, and consider changes in the timing as well as magnitude.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Change Impact on the Magnitude and Timing of Hydrological Extremes Across Great Britain

Lane

Kay

2021

Front. Water

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“…They also looked at results on pathways to 2°C , 3°C and 4°C at the end of the twenty-first century, a different definition of warming levels to that used here. Results from Arnell et al (2020) are based on the probabilistic UKCP product rather than the RCM used here, but the median projections for the three common metrics (heating degree days, cooling degree days, growing degree days) agree well for each region of the UK (See the Arnell et al 2020 supplementary material and Fig. 10 from Arnell et al 2020).…”

Section: Heavy Rainfall Metrics Based On Nswws Criteriamentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Another recent study (Arnell et al 2020) has also looked at indicators of climate change impacts using UKCP but focused on the probabilistic forecasts and global model simulations.…”

Section: Heavy Rainfall Metrics Based On Nswws Criteriamentioning

confidence: 99%

Future changes to high impact weather in the UK

et al. 2021

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High impact weather events such as extreme temperatures or rainfall can cause significant disruption across the UK affecting sectors such as health, transport, agriculture and energy. In this study we draw on the latest set of UK climate projections, UKCP, to examine metrics relating to high-impact weather over the UK and how these change with different levels of future global warming from 1.5 °C to 4 °C above pre-industrial. The changes to these hazards show increases in the frequency of extremely hot days and nights, with a UK average increase in hot days of between 5 and 39 days per year between 1.5 °C and 4 °C of global warming. Projections indicate an increase in cooling degree days of 134–627% and an increase in growing degree days of 19–60% between 1.5 °C and 4 °C of global warming. Extremely hot nights, which are currently rare, are emerging as more common occurrences. The frequency of high daily temperatures and rainfall increase systematically, while the frequency of very cold conditions (based on days where temperatures fall below 0 °C) is shown to decrease by 10 to 49 days per year. A reduction in heating degree days, of 11–32% between 1.5 °C and 4 °C of warming, is projected. Levels of daily rainfall, which currently relate to increased risk of river flooding, are shown to increase across the country, with increases of days with high impact levels of rainfall occurring by 1 to 8 days per year between 1.5 °C and 4 °C of warming. Average drought severity is projected to increase for 3-, 6-, 12- and 36-month-long droughts. The largest changes in the severity of the 12-month drought are between −3 and +19% between 1.5 °C and 4 °C of warming and for 36-month drought between −2 and +54% between 1.5 °C and 4 °C of warming. The projected future changes in high impact weather from this study will enable the characterization of climate risks and ultimately be able to better inform adaptation planning in different sectors to support the increase in resilience of the UK to future climate variability and change.

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“…Comparing a number of probability distribution functions, Svensson et al (2017) concluded that the tweedie distribution is most suitable for calculating drought indicators in UK catchments. The use of SSI fitted using the tweedie distribution has previously been employed to characterize hydrological drought risk in the UK in Barker et al (2015; and Arnell et al (2021). Agglomerative hierarchical clustering, a dendrogram-based clustering approach, was used to group catchments with similar drought response during the 2010/12 drought using the TSclust R package (Montero and Vilar https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-123 Preprint.…”

Section: Streamflow Data and Hierarchical Clusteringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Storylines of UK drought based on the 2010–2012 event

Chan

Shepherd

Smith

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Abstract. Spatially extensive multi-year hydrological droughts cause significant environmental stress. Given the impacts of climate change, the UK is expected to remain vulnerable to future multi-year droughts. Existing approaches to quantify hydrological impacts of climate change are often scenario-driven and may miss out plausible outcomes with significant impacts. Event-based storyline approaches aim to quantify storylines of how observed events could hypothetically have unfolded in alternative ways. This study uses the 2010–2012 drought, the most recent period of severe hydrological drought in the UK, as a basis, and analyses counterfactual storylines based on changes to 1) precondition severity, 2) temporal drought sequence, and 3) climate change. Evidence from multiple storylines shows that maximum intensity, mean deficit and duration of the 2010–2012 drought were highly conditioned by its meteorological preconditions, particularly for northern catchments at shorter time scales. Recovery time from progressively drier preconditions reflect both spatial variation in drought conditions and the role of physical catchment characteristics, particularly hydrogeology in the propagation of multi-year droughts. Two plausible storylines of an additional dry year with dry winter conditions repeated either before the observed drought or replacing the observed dramatic drought termination confirm the vulnerability of UK catchments to a three dry winter scenario. Applying the UKCP18 climate projections, we find that drought conditions worsen with global warming with a mitigation of drought conditions by wetter winters in northern catchments at high warming levels. Comparison of the storylines with a benchmark drought (1975–76) and a protracted multi-year drought (1989–93) shows that for each storyline, drought conditions could have matched and exceeded those experienced during the past droughts at catchments across the UK, particularly for southern catchments. The construction of storylines based on observed events can complement existing methods to stress test UK catchments against plausible unrealized droughts.

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Changing climate risk in the UK: A multi-sectoral analysis using policy-relevant indicators

Cited by 55 publications

References 45 publications

Climate Change Impact on the Magnitude and Timing of Hydrological Extremes Across Great Britain

Climate Change Impact on the Magnitude and Timing of Hydrological Extremes Across Great Britain

Future changes to high impact weather in the UK

Storylines of UK drought based on the 2010–2012 event

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