Guidance, factsheets and science reports
Supporting guides that show you how to use UK Climate Projections and information about the science reports that underpin them.
On this page you can find:
Case studies and demonstration projects
Case studies and demonstration projects
On the case studies and demonstration projects page you can explore UKCP-related case studies and demonstration projects showing examples of how people have used UK Climate Projections datasets.
Factsheets on UKCP products
We have produced a series of short documents, which summarise the key results for a number of UKCP18 variables and metrics. These can be found on our dedicated Factsheets page.
Guidance on using UKCP
A number of peer-reviewed guidance was produced in the development of the UK Climate Projections. Their purpose is to provide information for those analysing UKCP datasets:
- Data availability, access and formats (PDF - 1.3MB) [Updated July 2021] where you can find out what data is available for download and how you can access it.
- Representative Concentration Pathways (PDF - 259kB) where you can find out more about what they are and how we use them in the climate projections.
- Caveats and limitations (PDF - 787kB) which details issues that you need to be aware of when using UKCP datasets.
- How to use the different sets of Land Projections (PDF - 1.8MB). This guidance document helps you choose the set of projections that meets your needs.
- Bias-correction (PDF - 809kB). There are systematic differences between model results and observations (i.e. “biases”). When carrying out your analysis you will likely need to choose whether to adjust the climate data for these biases. The method chosen can be very specific to the application. This guide helps you make informed choices about bias correction methods.
Science reports
Science overview
This document shows the highlights from each of the components of UKCP18. This includes observations, projections over land and marine projections.
Science reports
Our science reports provide headline messages, descriptions of the methods used, an evaluation of the underlying models and future projections.
- State of the UK climate report [Updated September 2020]
- UKCP18 marine report (PDF - 5MB)
- UKCP18 Land Projections: Science report (PDF - 59MB)
- UKCP Local Update Report (PDF - 26MB) published July 2021 - this replaces UKCP Local (convection-permitting model projections: Science report) (PDF - 45MB).
- UKCP18 Derived projections of future climate over the UK (PDF - 11MB)
- UK Climate Projections: UKCP Probabilistic Projections of Climate Extremes (PDF - 3.5MB) [New Release October 2020]
- UK Climate Projections: Assessment of Drifts and Internal Variability in UKCP Projections (PDF - 2.7MB) [New Release October 2020]
Technical notes
A series of technical notes clarifying particular questions and issues about the UK Climate Projections.
- Clipping and baseline advice on Land Strand 1 data in UKCP18 (PDF - 1.1MB). This note covers characteristics of the probabilistic projections data, such as clipping at extreme ends of the distributions and non-zero sum of anomalies during the baseline period.
- The elicitation of distributions of parameters in HadGEM3 versions GA4 and GA7 for use in perturbed parameter ensembles. This note provides more detail about the perturbed parameter set of global projections.
- UKCP Local Update: Frequently Asked Questions – a set of frequently asked questions relating to the update, following the correction of the graupel coding error.
- UKCP Local: Graupel Technical Note (PDF - 6.3MB) - a technical note document relating to the UKCP Updates news announcement on 24 September 2020.
- UKCP Local: Frequently Asked Questions (PDF - 196kB) – a set of frequently asked questions relating to the UKCP Updates news announcement on 24 September 2020.