UK Climate Projections (UKCP18)

What is UKCP? 

As part of the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme, the UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18) offers a range of tools designed to help decision-makers assess their risk exposure to climate change and adapt.

The UKCP18 project uses cutting-edge climate science to provide updated observations and climate change projections until 2100 in the UK and globally. The project builds upon on the success of UK Climate Projections 2009 (UKCP09) to give the most up-to-date assessment of how the climate of the UK may change over the 21st century.

UKCP18 updates the probabilistic projections over land and provides a set of high-resolution spatially-coherent future climate projections for the globe at 60km scale and for the UK at 12 km scale. The 12km climate model is further downscaled to 2.2km scale - a level previously only used for short-term weather forecasts, allowing realistic simulation of high impact events such as localised heavy rainfall in summer. The marine projections of sea-level rise and storm surge are also updated.

UKCP18 Governance Board

The UKCP18 Governance Board has overall responsibility for the delivery of the project.  It provides strategic oversight of the UKCP18 project, signing off key deliverables and agreeing any recommendations for significant changes in scope.  The Governance Board is chaired by Professor Ian Boyd (Chief Scientific Advisor, Defra) and has senior representatives from the Met Office, Environment Agency, BEIS, Devolved Administrations, Adaptations Sub Committee and the UKCP18 Peer Review Panel.

Peer Review Process

The UKCP18 Peer Review Panel (PRP) is an independent panel of international climate experts, chaired by Sir Brian Hoskins (Grantham Institute, Imperial & University of Reading), which reports directly to the UKCP18 Governance Board.  It has given advice on UKCP18 project scientific methodology and deliverables, providing a strong oversight of the work done to produce the new climate projections until 2100.

Read this document about the UKCP18 peer review process [PDF, 2 pages]

See this infographic about the UKCP18 peer review process [PDF, 1 page]

Review comments and replies were recorded during the peer review process and are available for the marine and land projections science reports and guidance [PDF, 35 pages] as well as the UKCP convection-permitting model projections science report [PDF, 17 pages].

User-informed Products and Services

The two UKCP18 project User Groups represent the views of Government and Non-Government users to the UKCP Governance Board and provide invaluable feedback on project decisions and outputs to the project team. Learn about the UKCP18 User Groups.  

In 2022, the user groups were refreshed and a new UKCP Development and Knowledge Sharing network was formed. The network helps to inform future developments in the Defra-funded UKCP Climate Services project. Read the article dated 17 November 2021 on the Project News page.

UKCP E-Learning

We have a free e-learning course to introduce new users to UKCP. The course is divided into eight modules, including getting started with climate information and understanding in UKCP. It has various exercises to help you put the theory into practice.

By the end of the course, you’ll be able to better define your information needs, navigate and select the most appropriate products for your application, as well as learn how to use the UKCP User Interface.

The course can take between 1-2 working days to complete, depending on how much you explore the supporting material. You can dip in and out of the course as needed.

Please contact the UKCP18 team using this form, with “UKCP e-learning registration” as the subject.

Contact us 

If you have a query about UKCP18, you may find the answer on our Frequently Asked Questions page. Or you can contact the UKCP team directly by completing this short enquiry form.