A new prototype website tool has been created to help people working and volunteering at the British Red Cross better understand their climate-related risk, make climate-informed decisions for adaptation and enhance resilience to extreme heat events in a changing climate.
British Red Cross (BRC), as a humanitarian auxiliary to government, has an ongoing relationship with the Met Office, as both organisations work together to help people stay safe, informed and prepared, for example, through the important work of the Met Office Civil Contingency Advisors.
Meeting the needs of the British Red Cross
In an example of working together to co-design tailored climate information, applied climate scientists at the Met Office have worked closely with the British Red Cross to understand their needs, particularly across their UK Resilience Directorate.
Funded under the Horizon Europe ASPECT project, this work started in 2024. The Met Office has been working with a consortium of European partners to improve prediction and projection information for the next season through to the next 30 years, including supporting the use of seamless climate information across timescales in decision-making in different sectors.
The British Red Cross provide a critical role supporting people in emergencies around the world, including preparing for and responding to weather-related crises and emergencies in the UK. Whilst there is acute awareness within the British Red Cross of climate change–driven increases in extreme weather, some staff and volunteers may still have gaps in understanding or hold misconceptions, particularly in how climate change should inform decision-making within UK response operations across different timescales.
Hotter summers and more frequent heatwaves in the UK, and their impacts, have led to a greater focus on heat-related emergency response. The British Red Cross recognises that climate-informed decision-making will need to become increasingly embedded across the organisation as it adapts to a rapidly changing climate. To do this effectively, the British Red Cross is aiming to embed climate thinking across their resilience operations.
Together, in this ASPECT-funded work, we aim to support staff and volunteers to better understand their local climate information about present and future extreme heat, helping empower them to make informed decisions based on state-of-the-art data and information.
Developing the website tool
To support use of existing climate information services, ranging from the upcoming season to longer term climate projection information, an initial activity involved co-designing in-person training. This training aimed to help British Red Cross staff interpret climate tools such as the seasonal 3-month outlook and use the (recently updated) Local Authority Climate Service. Tailored specifically for the British Red Cross, this training was well-received and led to more extensive and freely accessible training through development of the website tool.
The website is publicly available, including information about accessing a range of climate information products from ASPECT consortium partners, from seasonal forecasts to climate projections. Our collaboration helps provide trusted information and signposts to other existing user friendly and reliable sources of climate information, contextualised with climate intelligence based on understanding user needs.
Our close engagement with the British Red Cross has ensured that the website remains relevant to their decision-making context, with the website designed to empower staff to think about the range of decisions that extreme heat might have for the organisation. To make the content more accessible, real-life experiences of past responses to extreme heat and associated fire hazards are included alongside engaging visual and video elements.
Summer Wyatt-Buchan, Climate Adaptation and Resilience Manager at the British Red Cross, reflects: "Working with the Met Office to co-develop the website under the ASPECT project has been a highly constructive and collaborative process. It marks an important milestone in embedding climate-informed thinking into British Red Cross emergency response operations. I believe this will be a valuable tool for our emergency responders, helping them build the awareness and confidence to factor climate-informed thinking into their decision-making".
As part of the ASPECT Horizon Europe consortium effort, the content of the website was produced by the Met Office, and the website was implemented by ASPECT consortium partners ECMWF and is hosted by the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Under the open science principles of the ASPECT project, the Met Office have licensed the use of Met Office created material on the website for reuse under Deed - Attribution 4.0 International - Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0).
Help improve future heat-related information
We recognise that many other users in the UK may also find the website a useful way to access climate information about extreme heat, particularly for those who aren’t experienced with interpreting or analysing climate information. In aligned research, our ASPECT partners at the University of Leeds are testing how people interpret examples of heat-related European prediction information. If temperature change and heat extremes might affect your organisation, you can take part in a short 10-minute survey, helping researchers shape the provision of future climate information and services.
In 2025, the British Red Cross also became the newest corporate charity partner of the Met Office.