Climate Services in the UK Richard Graham with acknowledgements to many contributors 13th session of FOCRAII, 24-26 April 2017, Beijing, China

Content: examples of UK and global services to a range of users Timescales: past/present climate; monthly-seasonal-multiannual prediction; long-term future climate scenarios and impacts Many services are bi-lateral Met Office/customer; some are provided as part of UK or international multi-lateral partnerships UK Government departments Businesses, through consultancy International collaborations e.g. Climate Science for Services Partnership – China (CSSP - with CMA and IAP) Contributions to WMO Global Framework for Climate Services Met Office is a WMO-designated GPC for long-range (seasonal) forecasts New developments: multi-annual/decadal prediction

Present-day climate: risk of unprecedented extremes Service to UK government: National Flood Resilience Review 2016 (with CSSP link) Obs. record long, but limited (~100 years) Analysis of 30-ensemble retrospective multi-annual predictions, 1981- 2015 10500 “fidelity tested” realisations of UK winter months Insight into dynamical drivers of extremes www.theguardian.co.uk In southeast UK January 2014 saw the greatest monthly rainfall total on record ~ 250% of LTA - could it have been even worse? Probability of unprecedented UK winter monthly rainfall events 8% chance of a record each winter 1% chance of a month with 15-30% uplift on the rainfall record each winter Same approach also used in CSSP for China temperature extremes Vikki Thomson

Next 3-months prediction for UK contingency planners Developed with UK government cabinet office Public, also feeds into UK Hydrological Outlook and a winter service to Energy Industry Based on temperature and precipitation output from GloSea5 seasonal system Format focusing on extremes probability (not tercile categories) Presented in context of recent observed UK conditions Bias corrected GloSea5 ensembles values (42) Observations last 10 years Predicted PDF Observations 1981-2010 Observed PDF Absolute values: Shading indicates quintile categories

Developing winter services to Dept of Transport and Energy Industry DJF 2009/10: PMSL anomaly GloSea5 re-forecasts of DJF NAO (orange) (1993-2012) November starts +NAO N Europe Mild, wet and stormy R = 0.62 Ensemble Mean Ensemble Members -NAO N Europe Cold, snowy and still Observations Daily UK gas demand Vs observed temperature Length of weather related delays: Heathrow (Nov-Mar) Vs observed NAO Vs GloSea5 forecast NAO R = -0.67 R = -0.65 Length of delay Observed NAO index Forecast NAO index Socio-economic trends removed Palin et al. JAMS 2016 © Crown copyright Met Office Thornton et al, 2016 ERL

GlosSea5 skill 10m windspeed Yangtze River forecasts Seasonal forecasting in China for the energy sector UK-China Climate Science for Service Partnership (CSSP-China) GlosSea5 skill 10m windspeed Yangtze River forecasts Monthly release to CMA Forecasts of precip & river flow River flow data provided by IAP Latest 3-month season from GloSea5 GloSea5 May-July 2017 Illustrative bar plot and cor maps illustrative ts, Rel & ROC plots (good skill) illustrative ts, Rel & ROC plots (bad skill) Temperature Wind speed Irradiance Met Office, IAP and CMA collaborators: “Skill and reliability of seasonal forecasts for the Chinese energy sector” J. Appl. Met. Climatol. https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.06662

Yangtze River Basin Rainfall Consultation Conference Meeting the “Users” May 2016 User Interface: Consensus forecast User engagement Review user requirement Data sharing

Global seasonal prediction: WMO GPC products http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/seasonal-to-decadal/gpc-outlooks Assisting Regional Climate Centres and NMHSs Probability forecast: Rainfall Oct-Dec 2016 Measure of long-term skill Select (e.g. Niño indices, temp/precip ) \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Menu driven above Observed OND2016 average 3-month means to 6-months ahead: global coverage Updated every month - Info. on track record forecast performance (skill) “zoom” to region to assist Regional Climate Centres and NMHSs contributed to the WMO Lead Centre Multi-Model below 2016 drought: Horn of Africa © Crown copyright Met Office

Coordination of an informal Near-Term Climate Prediction multi-model 2015 predictions for 2016-2020 near-surface temperature anomaly relative to 1971-2000 Up to 10 contributing centres – global forecasts for next 5 years Helping define future WMO operational infrastructure Provides a consensus view – reducing dependency on a single model Skill comparable to seasonal predictions Variables: near surface temperature, rainfall, sea level pressure, Atlantic overturning circulation Aligned with WCRP Grand Challenge on Near Term Climate Prediction Plots available from: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/seasonal-to-decadal/long-range/decadal-multimodel Multi-model mean Met Office coordination of international exchange of decadal forecasts, every year since 2010. This is the main evidence for our capability to be LC-NTCP

UK Climate Projection: UKCP09 Government funded UK partnership – over 30 contributors Probabilistic advice: 2020s, 2050s, 2080s to 25km resolution Maps plus user customisation and raw data access - Met Office Hadley Centre model: 400 PPE ensemble 12 international models contributing to CMIP3 11 member regional model for UK Products and outputs include: temperature, precipitation, wind Marine & coastal Sea level Storm surge height UK Climate Change Risk Assessment, 2012: assessed 100 potential impacts across 11 key sectors Major upgrade in preparation for 2018 – including convective permitting modelling to 4km to better assess changing flash flood risks © Crown copyright Met Office

UK’s Electricity Network Resilience Funder: UK Energy Networks Association Aim: How will the frequency of weather-related network faults change with climate change? Weather causes of network faults: Lightning Snow, sleet and blizzard Wind & gale Ice Rain Freezing, fog and frost Solar heat Flooding Used modelling from UKCP09 The UK’s Electricity network is split into 3 main stakeholders: the generators, distributors and suppliers. Generators are responsible for generating the energy we use in our homes and businesses. Generated electricity flows into the National Transmission (high voltage) network and through to the regional Distribution (lower voltage) networks. Distributors are the owners and operators of the network of towers and cables that bring electricity from the National Transmission Network to homes and businesses. Even so, they are not the organisations that sell electricity to the end consumer. This is carried out by organisations who make use of the distribution networks to pass the energy commodity to your property - the suppliers. Suppliers are the companies who supply and sell electricity to the consumer. The suppliers are the first point of contact when arranging an electricity supply to domestic, commercial and smaller industrial premises. This project works with the first two sets of stakeholders: the companies that operate and own both the transmission and distribution networks. In this talk I will concentrate only on the distribution network illustrated in the map – areas the size of a county. Results include: projected increase in lightning faults by up to 40% projected decrease in snow, sleet and blizzard faults by up to 80% wind and gale faults more uncertain: may increase/decrease by a small amount © Crown copyright Met Office

Summary Met Office has co-developed and supplies a wide range of climate services to UK as well as international stakeholders Services include some provided with UK and international partners Timescales include: seasonal, multi-annual, decadal – and to 2080s Services underpinned by seamless forecasting capability across weather to climate timescales The examples demonstrate crucial importance of user engagement from the start

Thank you!

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WMO: Four stages of service development and delivery 1. User engagement What decisions do they make What information do they need 2. Service Design & Development Based on user needs 3. Delivery 4. Evaluation and improvement Monitor service performance and customer feedback Source: The WMO Strategy for Service Delivery and it’s implementation plan

IMPALA AMMA-2050 HyCRISTAL UMFULA FRACTAL

Timescales in scope? Past/present climate Near-term future climate observations and monitoring, climatologies Near-term future climate month-season-decade predictions Long-term future climate multi-decadal projections Often an overlap with weather services