How can I explore transient future climate and changes throughout the 21st century?

In detail

UKCP09 provides seven overlapping time periods stepped forward by a decade beginning with 2010–2039 (see Figure 1.1 of the Climate change projections report). The fact that they are overlapping offers opportunities to explore the implications of the evolving changes in climate as reflected by the projections which overlap the period of interest (e.g. the decade of the 2030s is included in each of the first three 30-year time periods). As such, if interest is primarily in the decade of the 2030s, users may wish to explore the sensitivity of their assessment to using projections not only centred on the 2030s but also that centred on the 2020s and 2040s. The latter may be of particular interest where there is a low tolerance of climate risks.

The available plume plots offer users the opportunity to examine how a particular probability level changes through the century as they are plots of the changes projected for a variable across the seven 30-year time periods. Users need to take care when interpreting these plots. Firstly, the values plotted are those for each of the individual 30-year time periods at specific probability levels using the CDF data. Additionally, the plotted changes are not representing how one model variant would evolve through time, but rather how the value associated with a particular relative strength of evidence (probability level) would evolve through the century. The values are, therefore, not taken from one model variant.  If users are interested in exploring this type of information (i.e. the evolution over time of a single model variant), they would need to use the Sampled data.

The outputs available from the RCM are presented as time series from 1950–2099 and therefore each ensemble provides a continuous projection throughout the time series. Prior to using this information users should be aware of what it provides and how it can and should not be used, including advantages and disadvantages. Users should be aware that the RCM does not incorporate as wide a range of uncertainties as the UKCP09 probabilistic projections. As the 11-member RCM data is not a UKCP09 product, users will have access to the data through the LINK project. There is little guidance to using this information beyond a limited reference within this user guidance, that in Chapter 5 of the Projections report and that on the LINK website.