Climate

Understanding our changing climate

With the wider world increasingly waking up to the threats posed by climate change, our climate researchers are leading the way in tackling the key questions being raised.

Whether examining the impact of a two- or three-degree-warmer world or exploring the likelihood of a worsening of the UK’s wintertime flooding, our academics are shaping policy and strengthening society’s climate resilience.

The subject’s global importance is reflected in the Division’s research, with UK-based projects such as assessing the impact of climate change on the flood risk to London sitting alongside internationally-focused work centred on the Sahara, South West Asia and the Arctic.

Much of our research sits at the interface between weather and climate and we work alongside the Weather and Earth Observation & Space Research Divisions to address this growing area. We also collaborate closely with influential groups including the Met Office and the National Centre for Atmospheric Science.

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For specific enquiries, please contact:

Professor Danny Feltham

Research Division Lead

Email: d.l.feltham@reading.ac.uk

Telephone: +44 (0) 118 378 5410

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Warming, warning climate stripes by Ed Hawkins at the university of Reading

research highlights

Warming, warning stripes

Striking climate graphics showing how average temperatures have risen across the globe from the pre-industrial era to today made by Professor Ed Hawkins as part of his climatelabbook project, have been shared widely across the world.

The graphic, first produced in 2017, uses a coloured stripe to represent the global average temperature for each year since 1850, with blue for cooler temperatures and red for hotter years. The thick band of deep red stripes that appear towards the right end of the graphic are a stark visual representation of how human action has heated the climate over time.

In June 2019 people worldwide generated and shared graphics tailored to their own state or country from showyourstripes.info hosted by Reading’s Institute for Environmental Analytics, as part of an international campaign. By 24 June almost 1 million stripes graphics had been downloaded from over 180 countries and over 100 TV meteorologists had agreed to use the graphics on their live broadcasts. Find out more

Countdown on climate change

Professor Nigel Arnell has contributed to a major 2018 report involving 27 global institutions: The Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change. The report shows that rising temperatures across the globe as a result of climate change are already exposing people to an unacceptably high health risk, with the elderly in Europe and the East Mediterranean regions being particularly vulnerable.

Findings revealed that 157 million more vulnerable people were subjected to a heatwave in 2017 compared with in 2000, and 18 million more than in 2016. Furthermore 153 billion hours of work were lost in 2017 due to extreme heat.

Heat also greatly exacerbates urban air pollution, with 97% of cities in low- and middle- income countries not meeting WHO air quality guidelines. Read more

Tracking the rising tide

The world’s sea level has been rising since the mid-19th century, with current estimates at a 3cm rise per decade. Professor Jonathan Gregory’s research has provided evidence that human activity has been the chief factor driving this process, for which he was awarded the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award Climate Change prize in 2019.

Professor Gregory, who is lead author of chapters dealing with sea-level rise and ocean observation for three Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s reports, has also co-authored research providing the first ever reconstruction of ocean temperature rise from 1871 to 2017.

Published in the journal PNAS, the University of Oxford-led research team calculated global warming of the oceans at 436 x 10²¹ Joules. This supports evidence that the oceans are absorbing most of the excess energy in the climate system arising from greenhouse gases emitted by human activities. Find out more

Naming storms could save lives

Be it Doris, Hannah or Eleanor, the public are more likely to take action when a storm hits if it has a name, according to research led by Professor Andrew Charlton-Perez. The study, carried out with the Met Office and Open University, focused on Storm Doris, which crossed Ireland and the UK on 23 February 2017, causing significant damage and killing three people. Findings showed that it was discussed widely by the national press and on Twitter, leading to a change in public behaviour. There was around 14% less traffic during the morning rush hour than during an unnamed storm two years earlier in the same area, for which wind warnings were also issued. Afternoon rush-hour traffic peaked around an hour earlier, with around 20% less traffic on the motorways by the evening than in 2014. Read the original paper.

Better models to predict climate change

Computer models based on known physical laws are scientists’ primary tool for predicting climate change, yet even state-of-the-art ones produce a wide range of predictions.

A five-year European Research Council project led by Professor Ted Shepherd, Understanding the atmospheric circulation response to climate change, is aiming to get to the bottom of why this is the case, diagnosing sources of model error, understanding the link between this error and the spread in model projections and better understanding the chaotic variability of circulation patterns in the atmosphere.

Thames flood defences

Reading research is shaping long-term policy designed to protect more than £200 billion of assets in central London from flooding by the River Thames. Contributing to the Environment Agency’s TE2100 (Thames Estuary 2100) project, our academics found that predicted worst-case flood levels would be considerably lower than had previously been forecast.

The work helped TE2100 conclude that while a second Thames Barrier flood defence may be needed by 2070, it would not be required by 2030 when it would cost an estimated £10-20 billion. TE2100 was launched in recognition of the increasing exposure to flood loss and the recognised need to upgrade the Thames Barrier.

Read more research highlights

news and events

Get the latest news about our research via:

Climate research division twitter accounts

Weather and climate at Reading blog

Meteorology PhD blog – The Social Metwork

Spiralling Upwards

Climate scientist Ed Hawkins has made a big difference to the understanding of a vital contemporary issue: the upward spiralling of global temperatures.

Dr Hawkins analysed the past 165 years of global average temperatures and created what Mashable described as ‘the most compelling climate change visualisation ever seen’. Dr Hawkins’ animated climate spiral was first published on his blog Climate Lab Book, then via Twitter, where it was picked up and discussed by leading commentators around the world. It went on to form an integral part of the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics, where it was seen by a TV audience of more than a billion people.

The Climate Lab Book, a blog Dr Hawkins writes as part of his research activities, was already popular, thanks to its accessibility and engagement with scientists and members of the public, but its popularity grew exponentially thanks to the climate spiral. The animation has been seen 3.4 million times from Dr Hawkins’ tweet alone, with many millions more views via social media. Mainstream media were quick to discuss the graphic, while others who have used or mentioned the graphic include Elon Musk, Bernie Sanders and the artist Banksy. The US State Department translated the graphic into several different languages for its online webpages, and it has been used in high-profile conference presentations by senior policymakers, including the Australian Chief Scientist and the Chief Scientific Advisor
for DEFRA.

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