Climate change will impact on society in the UK, even if significant efforts are made to reduce emissions.  An understanding of the range of possible climate impacts on the UK will be needed to inform adaptation policy.  These impacts will be considered in the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment.

Potential climate impacts on the UK will be determined by:

• potential changes in climate, i.e. the climate change effects, using climate projections; and
• potential changes in socio-economic development in the UK, using socio-economic scenarios.

Climate change projections

A range of studies and methodologies exist for estimating UK climate change, of which the recent UKCP09 projections are an example.  Despite the uncertainties, different studies do show some consistent trends in future UK climate.  Among these are:

• sea level rise in coastal areas;
• more frequent extremes of flooding, heatwaves and drought;
• a reduction in frost days and snow cover;
• milder, wetter winters, with potential rainfall increases in the West;
• hotter, drier summers, with potential rainfall decreases in the South East; and
• greater average warming in the South, and less pronounced warming in the Scottish Isles.

How climate change might affect maximum summer temperatures in the UK, under a medium (business-as-usual) emissions scenario

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(Source: UKCP09)

Socio-economic trends

In addition to climate drivers, i.e. changes in climate, socio-economic trends such as population change and economic growth can exacerbate or alleviate the stresses brought about by climate.  Variations in socio-economic trends are equally as important in considering the possible impacts of climate change, but uncertainties in forecasting these trends are often just as large as those in climate projections.  The most comprehensive set of socio-economic scenarios for the UK was published in 2001 by UKCIP.