Supporting Adaption: Guidance, Tools and Learning through Doing Mr Roger Street UK Climate Impacts Program

Climate Changing: Are you ready? Supporting Adaptation: Guidance, Tools and Learning through Doing Tuesday, 25 th September 2007 Roger B. Street – UK Climate Impacts Programme Action Planning and Opportunities for Land-Based Businesses

Climate is Changing Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air (and ocean) temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level (IPCC WG1 – AR4) Impacts of these changes are already apparent - globally, nationally and locally. Individuals/businesses and organizations are at risk and some have already begun to respond adaptation. Eleven of the last twelve years ( ) rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record (since 1850)

Climate Will Continue to Change Global average surface temperature increase: <10% probability less than 1.5 o C Likely range o C with best guess 3 o C Higher than 4.5 o C cannot be excluded Over the next two decades warming of about 0.2 o C per decade regardless of future emissions. Even if GHG and aerosols stabilised at 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1 o C per decade is expected.

Regional Nature of Projected Temperature Increases – UKCIP02

Projected Precipitation Change – UKCIP s2050s2080s

What does this mean for Extremes? Some extremes will become more common, others less so Average duration of heatwaves has increased by between 4 and 16 days since 1961 Average duration of winter cold snaps has decreased by between 6 and 12 days since 1961 Trend towards heavier winter precipitation for most parts of the UK since 1961, but droughts are still possible These overall trends are expected to continue

Changes in Extremes observations Medium-High emissions Temperature change, °C Source: Peter Stott, Hadley Centre Increase in the number of extremely warm days (2080s) Winter: 6-12 days/year Summer: days/year

Need for Adaptation and Mitigation Adaptation is needed as we are already committed to some degree of climate change irregardless of mitigation efforts. Mitigation is needed to reduce the amount and rate of future climate change – avoiding dangerous or unacceptable climate change Influenced by historic emissions Determined by current and future emissions

Adaptation – for the long haul

UKCIP Tools and Guidance

Adaptation Strategies & Measures Building Adaptive Capacity – creating information, social capital, conditions (regulatory, institutional, and managerial), and support systems and means that are needed as a foundation for delivering adaptation actions Awareness raising Data collection and monitoring Changing standards Developing supportive policies Research Organizational learning Delivering Adaptation Actions – actions that help to reduce vulnerability to climate risks or to exploit climate opportunities Building climate resilience Accepting losses Changing use and/or location Exploiting opportunities

Adaptation options – Building Adaptive Capacity  Increasing awareness of changes in climate, associated vulnerabilities and adaptation options and sharing knowledge within the agricultural and broader rural communities;  Pulling together these communities to identify and assess their vulnerabilities, risks and appropriately integrated and targeted adaptation options;  Assembling representatives from these communities and participating in discussions with regulators and policy makers; and  Facilitating dialogues within the agricultural and broader rural communities for the purpose of identifying sustainable adaptation options. The organisers and sponsors of this conference are playing a role in helping to build this adaptive capacity.

Adaptation options – Delivering Adaptation Living with and bearing losses or risks  Accept periodic losses or reductions in overall quality  Accept losses where sustainability is impossible or highly impractical Preventing effects or reducing exposure to risks – climate resilience  Preparedness and contingency planning for dealing with risks  Enhanced design specifications (buildings and livestock enclosures)  Improved soil management (soil moisture, nutrients, erosion)  Diversify (crops, livestock, forestry, eco-tourism, etc.)  Increase on-site water sources

Adaptation options – Delivering Adaptation Preventing effects or reducing exposure to risks – change use or location  Switch land use (change crops, livestock), less water intensive  Move activity away from risks to areas climatologically more capable of sustaining the activity. Sharing responsibility for any losses or risks  Purchase additional insurance  Cooperate within your community to minimise risks (e.g., neighbours working together to build joint water reservoirs, rainwater harvesting facilities and flood protection) In practice, adaptation will often involve a mixture of response strategies: some building climatic resilience, some ‘living with risks’, and some acceptance of loss.

Previous climate scenarios (e.g. UKCIP02) were essentially single model runs – other climate models produced different results UKCIP02 One way of doing this is to use many versions of the model – the user will be presented with a spread of results that reflects the range of plausible outcomes UKCIP08 – The next generation Important to determine the uncertainty associated with the climate model results

The UKCIP08 “Tool Kit” A set of high-level headline messages will give a national overview of the main changes described by UKCIP08 Focus will be on commonly used climate variable such as projected changes in rainfall, temperature and sea-level Reports including: Climate trends Probabilistic changes of climate change Marine Projections Summary Report A set of pre-prepared maps and graphs (also illustrative of the types of customised outputs users will be able to generate using the UKCIP08 user interface The UKCIP08 user interface will allow users to create: Individual maps, probabilistic plots (PDFs, CDFs), plume diagrams, scatter graphs and box plots Customised numerical products such as GIS format files and sampled projections that can be input to impacts models It will also provide access to an integrated Weather Generator – a tool that will created statistically derived expressions of the future typical daily and hourly weather conditions consistent with the probabilistic projections.

Keeping Informed More information on impacts, adaptation and tools and guidance UKCIP08 to be launched in October 2008 UKCIP08 Climate Trends Report to be published Autumn 2007 More information available through the UKCIP Scenarios Gateway :

Break Out Sessions 45mins for each session

Conclusions – The 4 big Issues Mr Poul Christensen Chairman