Underpinning our objectives
The need to understand the climate system interlinks with all of DECC’s objectives:
To save energy with the Green Deal and support vulnerable consumers, we need to understand better what the climate will be like over the lifetime of the policy so that the measures we support are as effective as possible.
To deliver secure energy on the way to a low-carbon energy future, we need to be able to predict the probable renewable energy resources that will be available to us in the future so we can deploy the right quantity of renewable energy sources, like wind turbines, in the right places.
To drive ambitious action on climate change at home and abroad, we must be able demonstrate why action is important. We need to be able to back up our position with good evidence from real-world data, as well as be able to make good predictions about what impacts different levels of action and investment will have.
To manage our energy legacy responsibly and cost-effectively, we need to be able to know about potential risks that may be posed by the climate in the future. Future sea level and the probability of flooding are important considerations when siting major energy infrastructure.
Current work
DECC and Defra jointly support climate research and modelling at the Met Office Hadley Centre. DECC’s climate programme supports UK policy by delivering world-leading research into climate systems, in particular through the development and use of state-of-the-art models of climate systems and analysis of climate observations. Observations of trends and processes in the real world are crucial to understanding how and why climate is changing, and to develop better climate models.
The Hadley Centre also leads a consortium of research institutes in the DECC-Defra funded Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change programme (AVOID). Launched in February 2009, this programme provides policy-relevant evidence and research to help avoid dangerous climate change.
Observations of real world climate data are key to understanding Earth systems. DECC funds or co-funds observational programmes where they are needed to support other parts of our research programme. These include
- Argo programme, using submersible floats that measure salinity, current velocity and temperature in the upper ocean
- satellite-based Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) and Jason-3 programmes for measuring sea temperature and level respectively
- an observations centre at Mace Head on the west coast of the Republic of Ireland, where atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are measured to verify greenhouse gas inventories and contribute to scientific understanding of the build-up of concentrations in the atmosphere.
DECC manages the annual compilation of the UK greenhouse gas inventory, which meets international legal requirements under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol. It is used to show whether or not the UK is on track to meeting its legally binding carbon budgets set under the Climate Change Act 2008, on the basis of advice from the Climate Change Committee (CCC).
We are also working alongside international partners on forestry projections and the monitoring, reporting and verification needed for the climate negotiations.
DECC scientists provide support and coordination for the UK input into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body set up to provide governments with the most up-to-date assessments of the scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects of climate change. The IPCC's assessments constitute the most authoritative and comprehensive view of climate change and inform development of domestic climate policy and the UK position in international climate negotiations.
DECC also supports research on global climate change impacts and adaptation through the AVOID programme, and bilaterally with India and China.
Publications
Outputs from the research we are undertaking in this area will be published here.