In this blog, Professor Rowan Sutton writes about his first month here at the Met Office as he takes up the role of Director of the Met Office Hadley Centre.
I am writing this blog at the end of my fourth week working at the Met Office. I was asked by my colleague, Oak Wells, whether I felt like I was being continually sprayed with a fire hydrant – and this isn’t a bad simile. There has certainly been a lot to assimilate, and this will clearly be the case for some time yet. But it has been very enjoyable. Colleagues, new and old, have been very welcoming, and it’s been great to hear about all the fascinating work going on in all corners of the Met Office. And there are a lot of corners!
A passion for climate science
I have spent most of my career in the academic world, much of it based at the University of Reading, working within and for NERC’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS). I have a passion for climate science and its critical role in helping society address the urgent challenges of climate change. My personal research has focused especially on the role of the oceans in climate variability and change, predictability and prediction.
At Reading, I initially held a research fellowship and later became Director of Climate Science for NCAS. I have been involved in a wide range of international activities including serving as a Lead Author of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, and recently as Co-Chair of the World Climate Research Programme Lighthouse Activity on Explaining and Predicting Earth System Change. Two years ago, I took on a new part-time role as Research Dean for Environment, working with Tom Oliver, an ecologist. We worked together to develop and promote Reading’s diverse portfolio of research relevant to sustainability – driving the message that meeting the challenges of sustainability needs everyone.
Throughout my career, I have collaborated with Met Office colleagues and more recently, I have come to learn more about the work of the Met Office Hadley Centre through my role as Chair for the Science Review Group.
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I led an international academic panel to independently review climate research, underpinned by the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme, and advise government stakeholders on the quality, robustness and relevance of these science outputs.
A champion for climate science
And now I have the honour and responsibility to serve as Director of the Met Office Hadley Centre. What will be my approach to this role? In broad terms, our ambition must be for the Met Office Hadley Centre to continue to be recognised as an international leader in climate science and its applications to policy and decision-making. Advancing climate science is essential because there remain fundamental gaps in our knowledge about how climate is changing and how it will change in the future, and these gaps are key obstacles to effective adaptation and mitigation. Without climate science we are driving planet Earth into the fog. So, my first goal is to be a champion for climate science.
In addition, we must focus our efforts in those areas where the Met Office has unique strengths. These strengths relate especially to our capabilities for monitoring and modelling climate and Earth System change. We must continue to push the frontiers of these capabilities, so that they remain world leading. I am also particularly interested in the opportunities to better combine observations and models to advance the science and inform decision making.
In a fast-changing world we must be rapidly responsive to new opportunities. Of course, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning stands out as a key area of opportunity at this time, and it’s been great to hear of the exciting work in this field already underway at the Met Office.
Partnerships are vital. The urgent challenges of climate science and climate change are far too large for any one organisation, so ensuring that we have the right partnerships in place, and are making the most of these, must also be a high priority for us all.
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I still have a lot to learn about the work of the Hadley Centre and the wider Met Office, about changing customer needs and seeking and making the most of many new opportunities. All whilst I attempt to manage the continued spray from that fire hydrant.
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As the climate we live in changes, there is an ever-growing need for climate information to aid resilience, adaptation, and mitigation planning both in the UK and globally.
Established in 1990, the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Science and Services is one of the world’s leading climate science institutions. Pioneering research carried out with global partners has been instrumental in helping the UK and other nations understand and address the challenges posed by climate change.
The Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme stands at the forefront of global climate research, providing crucial research which informs both national and international climate policies. This blog explores the pivotal role of the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme in providing climate evidence to numerous UK Government departments as well as its broader benefits to society.
The Role of the Climate Programme across Government Departments
The Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme contributes to underpinning climate science research in the UK, meeting UK Government evidence needs and supporting the UK and global climate community to understand and respond to climate challenges.
Supporting resilience, adaptation and mitigation planning
The UK Climate Projections (UKCP) are a set of tools and data showing how the UK climate is changing and may change in the future. They are particularly significant for downstream users of climate information in Government and industry to aid resilience and adaptation.
In July 2023, Defra launched the Third National Adaptation Programme (NAP3) which sets out a 5-year programme of action to build the UK’s resilience to climate change. It is part of the statutory process set out under the Climate Change Act, 2008 and includes existing, strengthened, and new commitments to respond to the 61 risks and opportunities identified in the UK’s Third Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3).
Science evidence both provided by and underpinned by the Climate Programme played a vital role in informing CCRA3 and the adaptation actions set out in NAP3. The UKCP projections were a key source of information for both the third CCRA and NAP3. They underpin much of the adaptation work taking place in the UK and provide evidence on climate hazards we could experience at 2°C and 4°C of warming.
Energy security and resilience
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) plays a critical role in the UK’s response to climate change, with a focus on transitioning to sustainable energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme, contributes to the scientific foundation needed to support these objectives. By delivering high-quality climate science and modeling, essential for developing robust policies, DESNZ ensures energy security while advancing the UK’s sustainability goals.
In a recent blog we shared how we are supporting the energy sector better understand the energy needs for the 2030’s and beyond. Working with Ofgem, DESNZ, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) and the electricity system operator (ESO), our aim is to make data sets and guidance available for use by the entire energy sector. This initiative seeks to provide consistency, reduce duplication, and lower costs across various projects and research efforts exploring future energy models and needs.
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Energy security is a key priority for Government. Winter weather in the UK and its associated impacts are strongly correlated to the large-scale atmospheric circulation in the North Atlantic region. The Met Office seasonal forecasting system, underpinned by the Climate Programme can skilfully predict this large-scale circulation in winter, which enables skilful seasonal climate forecasts for the energy sector. This supports UK energy resilience by of high-risk periods for energy demand and supply, for example in winter cold snaps and wind droughts.
Through its cutting-edge research, the Climate Programme informs DESNZ strategies on energy resilience, adaptation to climate impacts, and the development of low-carbon technologies. This collaboration ensures that the UK’s energy policies are grounded in the latest scientific evidence, making them more effective in mitigating the impacts of climate change.
UK Food Security and Ecosystem Risks
The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) work on safeguarding the UK’s environment, agriculture, and food security is heavily supported by the climate research conducted under the Climate Programme. As the UK faces increasing risks from extreme weather events, such as floods and droughts, the need for accurate climate projections has never been greater. The Climate Programme provides these projections, enabling Defra to develop strategies that protect vital ecosystems and ensure the resilience of the UK’s food supply.
One of the key contributions of the Climate Programme to Defra is through the Defra-funded Climate Services, which focus on the impacts of climate change on farming and the broader food system. These services inform policymakers about necessary adaptations, such as improving water management in agriculture or enhancing the resilience of food supply chains. By integrating our research into its policies, Defra can better prepare for the challenges that a changing climate presents to the UK’s natural environment and food production systems.
Global climate negotiations
On the international stage, research and evidence carried out as part of the Climate Programme directly informs applied science and services funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) & other Government Departments to support global action on adaptation and resilience particularly in, but not exclusively, in developing countries. Research supports the UK’s contributions to global climate negotiations and international climate agreements, as well as contributing to the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Met Office Hadley Centre scientists provided authorship and review support to IPCC Sixth Assessment Report – a crucial document used for informing global climate policies and the setting of targets for emissions reductions.
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Met Office contributions to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Reports (IPCC AR6) Working Group reports (WGI, WGII and WGIII)
Building on the Climate Programme’s international leadership in climate science and its applications to policy and decision-making, FCDO Programming can undertake global engagement and positioning of the UK as a force for good working towards addressing the current global climate challenge helping build resilience. This aligns with the FCDO’s diplomatic objectives and mission to support global development and growth whilst alleviating poverty, particularly in regions that are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
The ever-growing urgency to act ahead of high-impact weather and climate events to effectively build long-term climate resilience requires sustained commitments and partnerships worldwide, and needs-driven, action-focused research.
The UK has long-standing Programming focused on the adaptation and resilience agenda. As an example of active Programming that draws on the Climate Programme, the Weather and Climate Information Services Programme (WISER) focusses on increased quality, accessibility and use of information for action and resilience building in Africa, Asia-Pacific, and MENA regions. Another example is the CLimate Adaptation and Resilience programme (CLARE), the UK’s £110m+ flagship research programme on climate adaptation and resilience, announced at COP26. CLARE is bridging critical gaps between science and action by championing Southern leadership of research. It supports partner governments, communities, and the private sector to use evidence and innovation to drive effective solutions to the climate challenge, whilst building capacity of both those carrying out the research and those using the resulting evidence. CLARE is mostly (about 90%) funded by FCDO, and co-funded and run by Canada’s International Development Research Centre. You can read more about the work of this programme in our recent blog.
Due to the world-leading status of the Climate Programme, FCDO are able to reinforce the UK’s position as a leading both mitigation and adaptation policy, diplomacy and climate action. The Climate Programme, in turn, benefits from the insights on how the evidence is used in decision making by the Government Departments involved to ensure that the UK remains a leader and relevant in international climate science.
Key Activities and Achievements 2021-2024
Each Climate Programme builds on the success of previous programmes, with research carried out in collaboration with leading research institutions and universities, both in the UK and internationally.
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The 2021-24 Climate Programme was designed around four key questions posed by the UK Government:
Current weather and climate hazards, risks and impacts that should be expected in the UK and globally Extreme weather events have severe impacts on society and ecosystems in our current climate, and pose an increasing threat as climate changes. Met Office Hadley Centre scientists have pioneered work in attribution science, which looks at whether climate change is responsible for extreme weather events, and to what extent.
Multiple attribution studies were carried out during the 2021-24 MOHCCP, investigating some of the most impactful weather events in that period including an attribution study of the UK’s record-breaking annual temperature in 2022, where human-induced climate change made this event around 160 times more likely.
In December 2023, the Met Office annual global temperature forecast was published. Global average temperature rise is measured as the difference between 1850-1900: a proxy for the Industrial Revolution. It suggested that 2024 is very likely to be between 1.34°C and 1.58°C (with a central estimate of 1.46°C) above the average for the pre-industrial period (1850-1900).
This was the first time that a year has been forecast with a substantial chance of exceeding 1.5°C above the average for the pre-industrial period. The Met Office’s Dr Nick Dunstone, who led the forecast, stated that: “It’s important to recognise that a temporary exceedance of 1.5 °C won’t mean a breach of the Paris Agreement. But the first year above 1.5 °C would certainly be a milestone in climate history.”
Future hazards, risks and impacts from weather and climate that we may wish to avoid or need to adapt to? Met Office scientists Neil Kaye and Deborah Hemming have been working in collaboration with biosecurity and forestry experts at Defra, Forest Research, Fera Science and the University of Warwick to provide scientifically robust and useful research, tools and guidance to help manage the climate-related risks to UK plants, particularly trees and forests, from plant pests and pathogens.
The UK Climate-Pest Risk Web Tool integrates ecological knowledge and models of known temperature thresholds for different pests/pathogens, with up-to-date climate observation datasets from the Met Office National Climate Information Centre. It is used to estimate the timings and locations of pest outbreaks across the UK, and inform actions to support assessment and management of pest and pathogen risks to UK plants now and in the future. More about this tool can be found in our blog.
Carbon budget and mitigation scenarios will avoid the most dangerous impacts of global climate change? Prof Richard Betts, led a comment paper, published in Nature in December 2023, which discussed the need for a clear definition of current warming levels in the context of the Paris Climate Agreement to avoid confusion over whether a particular level of warming (e.g. 1.5°C) has been reached. This paper proposes a method to produce an indicator of current warming levels, which (incorporating observations and RCP4.5 projections) is around 1.25°C for 2022.
To complement the newly proposed indicators, a new section was added to the Global Climate Dashboard to illustrate the current level of global warming. Led by Met Office Scientist Matt Palmer, the ‘Indicators of Global Warming’ dashboard displays eight separate indicators as well as observed global mean temperature using Met Office HadCRUT5 data, providing real time insights on the status of our efforts to keep warming below 1.5° C. You can here more about the dashboard in an episode of Climate Podcast.
The impacts and opportunities from mitigation and adaptation actions as we proceed towards a resilient and net zero future? At the UN’s Climate Conference COP27, the University of Leeds, in partnership with the Met Office, launched an online tool, which help communicate the co-benefits of climate action.
The Climate Co-Benefits Portal provides an assessment of the available scientific data on how climate interventions affect five impact categories; economy, ecosystems, energy, health and socio-cultural.
The portal assists in understanding the evidence on climate action co-benefits and trade-offs and can help identify where there is strong evidence to support policy development and decision making. The portal can be used to find out how climate mitigation and adaptation interventions influence other policy areas. More information was shared in our press release.
Future Directions and Challenges
Insights from our research is critical for planning and building climate-resilient infrastructure, essential for maintaining public safety and economic stability of key industries, such as agriculture, insurance, and energy, by providing the data needed to manage climate risks effectively. This not only protects jobs and livelihoods but also ensures that the UK can continue to thrive in a changing climate.
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The Climate Programme continues its vital work through the 2024-2027 workplan, with a focus on addressing emerging climate risks and supporting the UK’s net-zero transition. This is a crucial time for our planet as we try and slow global annual temperature increases as we get closer to the 1.5C Paris goal.
The new work plan was co-developed with UK Government and the Climate Programme’s independent science review group. Science produced during this programme will underpin the climate research and data needs of the 4th Climate Change Risk Assessment and the UK contribution to the 7th IPCC assessment. Work has already begun supporting an IPCC special report on climate change and cities and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 7.
The Met Office Hadley Centre will continue to work with partners to deliver scientific knowledge, expertise and capacity to meet the needs of the UK Government and support the UK and global climate science communities to build a more resilient and sustainable future for all. And as the impacts of climate change become increasingly apparent, the importance of our climate research will only continue to grow.
This month, we have been looking more closely at the role of the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme and how its research meets UK government evidence needs, supporting the UK and global climate community to understand and respond to climate challenges.
At a time when the response to the impacts of climate change have never been more pressing, there is an urgent need to embrace climate solutions and invest in resilience-building initiatives in order to push forward and navigate the challenges of a changing climate to create a more resilient, equitable, and prosperous world for generations to come.
Addressing these challenges requires us to focus on building strong partnerships within the wider climate science community to facilitate the sharing of expertise, skills, and capabilities across closely aligned research and development programmes.
The Met Office Hadley Centre is one of the World’s foremost climate change research centres and our aim is to provide climate science and services to people and organisations, to allow them to make better decisions to stay safe and thrive.
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The Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme
The Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme underpins climate-science research in the UK by delivering scientific knowledge, expertise, and capability (models, data and infrastructure) that meets the needs of the UK government and supports the UK and global climate community to understand and respond to climate challenges.
The Climate Programme provides information that is relevant to UK interests domestically and overseas, including providing data and learning from global observational datasets and global climate models. Where research includes aspects on large-scale drivers of climate variability and change this will, in many cases, be global in nature.
The programme will zoom in on the UK in more detail, and also other regions (such as Africa) where there is gearing from other projects or programmes (e.g. through CLARE). Additionally, the Met Office will ensure that techniques and analysis code developed for one focus region will be as transferable as possible to other locations.
CLimate Adaptation and REsilience (CLARE)
The UK-Canada framework research programme on Climate Adaptation and Resilience, known as CLARE is a key partnership designed, funded and run by the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) that is responding to the urgent need for climate solutions and resilience.
CLARE aims to enable socially inclusive and sustainable action to build resilience to climate change and natural hazards, with both organisations working closely to set the strategic and technical directions of the initiative.
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Launched at COP26, The CLARE programme is primarily funded by the United Kingdom which provides nearly 90% of the £110m funding as part of FCDO Research and UK International Climate Finance. CLARE works to support partner governments, communities, and the private sector to use evidence and innovation to drive effective solutions to the climate challenge, whilst building capacity of both those carrying out the research and those using the resulting evidence. CLARE enables long-term, sustainable, and equitable economic and social development in a changing climate, whilst supporting early action to reduce the impacts of climate variability and providing a better understanding of the associated climate risks.
CLARE includes three core pillars:
Research, commissioning new substantive action-oriented research as well as providing the cross-programme infrastructure, jointly run and co-funded by the UK and by Canada’s International Development Research Centre;
Services, providing timely weather and climate services to inform investments and actions by FCDO, UK government and wider stakeholders in partnership with the UK Met Office and others;
Partnerships, supporting strategic alliances on climate science and adaptation such as the Adaptation Research Alliance (ARA) and Climate Risks and Early Warning Systems (CREWS).
Since COP26, CLARE has become one of the most prominent research programmes in Climate Adaptation and Resilience globally. So far, 24 research projects are underway involving 136 organisations in 38 countries, three quarters of which in Africa and Asia. CLARE is developing research benefiting 30 countries by involving a wide range of organisations, from research institutions in a range of disciplines, to NGOs, local government, Meteorological Agencies and the private sector.
Grassroots Action Research Micro-grants through CLARE covered small projects in 23 countries enabling gender equitable and socially inclusive climate adaptation. These include a project in Ethiopia increasing women’s resilience to climate change through climate smart agriculture tools and enhancing food security through fruit production. And, in Ghana, an inventory of solutions to address the twin challenge of climate change and urban environmental problems in Sub-Saharan Africa, aiming to increase the involvement of young people into climate action in the region.
As a partner, the UK Met Office is playing a key role in a number of CLARE research projects and this blog will explore and explain the key aims within the projects of:
PALM-TREEs will seek to improve the understanding of the socio-economic impacts of extreme climatic events by highlighting how inequalities lead to discrepancy in climate risk among marginalised communities and how adaptation can help support these communities in a changing climate. The project aims to equip marginalised communities in South Africa, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and DR Congo, with the necessary tools to better respond to droughts, floods, and heat waves.
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The project involves a consortium of universities and institutions led by the University of Cape Town, the University of Yaoundé 1 and the University of Oxford. As a project partner, our primary role is to provide support, training and mentorship to the activities being carried out by early career researchers and collaborate on research projects.
Through a co-production approach, researchers work closely with stakeholders to develop new approaches to make this climate information more usable and accessible. The project will also focus on strengthening the inclusive and equitable knowledge networks needed to support climate resilience.
The impacts of TCs are devastating; in March 2019, over one thousand people died following the worst flood disaster in the region’s history caused by the landfall of TC Idai, and more recently, in February-March 2023, hundreds lost their lives when Cyclone Freddy hit the region, a TC with unprecedented persistence.
Despite their severe impacts, little is known of the changing attributes of TCs affecting the region in a warmer world. REPRESA aims to provide this necessary understanding of compound TC flood risks and the likelihood of unprecedented impacts, through state-of-art climate and flood modelling. It will pull-through scientific advances to achieve improved resilience through in-country leadership, training, and community engagement.
REPRESA brings together an interdisciplinary team of world-leading and physical scientists and is co-led by three organizations: the Global Change Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand (GCI) in South Africa, the Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique (UEM), and the University of Bristol in the UK. It includes partners across southern Africa, Europe and the UK.
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Outcomes of the REPRESA project include improved early-warning uptake, strengthened anticipatory action plans and better-informed climate adaptation planning, in the context of intersecting vulnerabilities. The Met Office is playing a key role throughout the project, including contributing new very high resolution (km-scale grid spacing) climate simulations for Africa that are better able to capture the intense rainfall associated with TCs. The Met Office is also the focal point for capacity strengthening, working with the national hydrometeorological services to increase capacity in impact-based forecasting.
MECHANICS
The twenty-month long CLARE project; Methods to Enhance Capability in High-resolution information for Adaptation: Initial Case Studies (MECHANICS) project has just commenced and is being co-led by a team of researchers from Zambia, South Africa and the UK. It’s overall aim is to build capability and develop case-studies in applying high resolution (km-scale) climate information for adaptation. Recent work on convective-scale (<4km) modelling over Africa has demonstrated its value in improving representation of the climate including extreme events.
MECHANICS will develop two decision-led “Km-scale Application Case Studies”, the first in Lusaka and the second in South Africa and will demonstrate how Km-scale information can aid real-world evaluation of adaptation options by decision makers. Both will develop an understanding of decision-contexts of the impacted systems and incorporate into these more robust findings on relevant changes in the climate and their impacts generated from integrating new high resolution climate information with the current understanding of these changes. The project will also build capability to undertake, and act as a demonstrator for, the use of high-resolution climate data to improve the robustness of context-relevant climate information and so enable better climate adaptation and resilience decision-making.
The first case study, led by the University of Zambia and Climate Systems Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town, will focus on supporting the city of Lusaka, Zambia, to adapt to increased perennial flooding. The second case study will be led by the Global Change Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand and the Agricultural Research Council and focuses on supporting farmers and city planners in South Africa adapt to reduced spring rainfall and later onset of the rainy season.
The Met Office Hadley Centre will support these southern African research teams and will lead work generating evidence for how Km-scale modelling can enhance the robustness of climate information for adaption decision-making, to guide future investment in the underpinning science, technical infrastructure and human capacity.
SIMBOL
Communities across the world are sensitive to the impacts associated with seasonal climate variability, particularly in regions reliant on rainfall seasons that support economic activities. Despite advances in seasonal forecasting over the past two decades, there has been limited progress in the generation and use of impact-based seasonal outlooks, that more directly serve societal needs while preserving the inherent probabilistic nature of the information.
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The Seasonal IMpact-Based OutLook (SIMBOL) project, funded through the CLARE programme from October 2023 to March 2024, has advanced a new method to address this gap within Regional and National Climate Outlook Forums. The project was delivered by the Met Office and University of Bristol, supported through the Met Office Academic Partnership (MOAP), and in collaboration with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Climate Prediction & Applications Centre (ICPAC) – the regional climate centre for East Africa.
SIMBOL has developed a simple-to-use and standardised methodology that can be adopted across the world, building on Impact-Based Forecasting (IBF) for early action on weather prediction timescales. Utilising co-production sessions, impacts specialists and stakeholders integrate different sources of evidence to jointly characterise impacts (for selected hazards, regions and sectors) for each forecast category irrespective of the forecast probability, and then integrate with seasonal forecasts to determine levels of risk and issues advisories.
A case study has been developed, focused on the impacts of seasonal total rainfall on groundwater availability in Somalia, and trialled at the 66th Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum (GHACOF-66) in Uganda in February 2024. Feedback from the trial was very positive and work is now advancing towards implementation of the approach through other programmes, including the FCDO funded Weather and Climate Information Services (WISER) programme.
Research supported by CLARE is bridging critical gaps between science and action by championing Southern leadership of research. Through CLARE, the programme is developing new tools and supporting partner governments, communities, and the private sector to use evidence and innovation to drive effective solutions to the climate challenge, whilst building capacity of both those carrying out the research and those using the resulting evidence. This work supports locally-led, socially inclusive and sustainable adaptation action through building true and equitable partnerships.
