Part of the Met Office’s wider strategy to maximise the benefits of its data, the portal contains 60 different data layers, plus guidance and information.
Built using geospatial technology from Esri UK, the portal is said to make it easier for any business or government organisation to combine open climate data with their own data and reveal the future impact of extreme conditions on their operations, including heatwaves, floods or droughts.
The main users are expected to be within government, construction, engineering, urban planning, transport, energy and healthcare industries.
“Historically, climate science has defined the problem, now it’s moving to help with the solution, providing information at a local level which is highly relevant to UK organisations,” Professor Jason Lowe, head of climate services, Met Office, said in a statement. “By combining the Met Office’s latest projections with Esri UK's geospatial tools, the reach and value of this data is greatly extended.
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Prof Lowe continued: “UK stakeholders can investigate their physical climate risks over the next 50 to 100 years. The most detailed climate projections reveal a greater chance of warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers and these help users plan and prepare for extreme weather, climate change and the reporting which new regulations, linked to climate change, will require.”
In the transport sector, data on temperature extremes can be used to understand potential negative impacts, such as days above 25°C indicating when trains could be disrupted due to overheating of railway infrastructure, or days below 0°C indicating transport disruption and increased energy demand for heating
According to the two organisations, the portal will also help provide insight to help organisations start their response to regulatory climate reporting, including TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures), which is being rolled out across the UK.
“The Climate Data Portal is a giant step forward in making climate data more usable for UK stakeholders,” said Pete Wilkinson, managing director of Esri UK. “Climate change presents a major challenge, and this challenge is a geographic one. Using geospatial technology as a delivery mechanism for climate data makes it quickly accessible and usable in spatial and temporal analysis, helping to identify at-risk areas and develop location-specific action plans.”
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