Why are there no estimates of wind speed in the Weather Generator output but PET (which requires wind) is included?

The probabilistic projections of changes in wind were initially considered to have too large an uncertainty range to be considered as part of the UKCP09 probabilistic climate projections. For this reason, wind has also not been included in the Weather Generator. The calculation of Potential Evapotranspiration (PET) does require wind, but since this has a relatively minor importance it was decided that this was robust enough to leave in the Weather Generator output. Since the launch of UKCP09 probabilistic projections for wind speed have been produced but they are in their own batch so cannot be used in the Weather Generator projections.  

In detail

If you require wind data on a daily timescale you can get this from the 11-member RCM data which is available through the LINK website. However, it must be remembered that:

a) this is not in as useable a format as the output available from the UKCP09 User Interface and

b) The 11-member RCM data only includes output from the Hadley centre model and does not incorporate any results from other IPCC models.

c) Projections of future changes in wind speed are known to be particularly uncertain, and there is little agreement between different global climate models. 

Find out more

• 11-RCM output on the BADC LINK website

• Spatially Coherent Projections