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UKCP18 BIAS-CORRECTED FUTURE CLIMATE PROJECTIONS

The UKCP18 RCM PPE is a Regional Climate Model (RCM) Perturbed Physics Ensemble (PPE) of climate projections produced for the UK Climate Projections 2018 project (UKCP18) by the Met Office Hadley Centre. These provide data at 12km resolution for the UK from 1981 to 2080 under a high emissions scenarios (RCP8.5). The original UKCP18 RCM data are available from the CEDA archive.

Additionally, the UKCP18 projections include fine resolution projections simulated by a PPE of Convection-Permitting Models (CPMs). These provide data at 2.2km and 5km resolution for the UK for three timeslices (1981-2000, 2021-2040 and 2061-2080). The original UKCP18 CPM data are available from the CEDA archive.

However, the RCMs and the CPMs shows a range of biases in their simulation of the UK's present-day climate and CRU PhD students have therefore applied two bias-correction methods to adjust the data to account for and remove many of these biases.

These bias-corrected UKCP18 RCM data (daily, at 12km resolution) and CPM data (hourly/daily, downscaled to 1km resolution, but only available for grid cells in 249 catchments in England and Wales and for 4 ensemble members) are available for other projects to use, provided due acknowledgement is given by citing the papers listed below.

Click the blue buttons below to access the bias-corrected climate projection data.

UKCP18 RCM precipitation and temperature bias corrected using the ISIMIP3BA change-preserving quantile mapping (resolution: daily, 12 km)

UKCP18 RCM potential evapotranspiration bias corrected using the ISIMIP3BA change-preserving quantile mapping (resolution: daily, 12 km)

Reyniers N, Osborn TJ, Addor N, Darch G (2023) Projected changes in droughts and extreme droughts in Great Britain strongly influenced by the choice of drought index. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 27, 1151-1171 (https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-1151-2023).

UKCP18 RCM precipitation and temperature bias corrected using a non-parametric quantile mapping method (resolution: daily, 12 km)

Reyniers, N., Zha, Q., Addor, N., Osborn, T. J., Forstenhäusler, N., and He, Y. (2025) Two sets of bias-corrected regional UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18) of temperature, precipitation and potential evapotranspiration for Great Britain. Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 2113-2133 (https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2113-2025).

UKCP18 Convection-Permitting Model (CPM) precipitation and temperature projections, bias corrected using a non-parametric quantile mapping method (resolution: hourly precipitation, daily temperature, 1 km)

Zha, Q., He, Y., Osborn, T. J., and Forstenhäusler, N. (2026) Bias-corrected UKCP18 Convection-Permitting Model projections for England. Hydrology and Earth System Science, 30, 2395-2415 (https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-2395-2026).


License

These datasets are made available under the Open Database License. Any rights in individual contents of the datasets are licensed under the Database Contents License under the conditions of Attribution and Share-Alike.

Please use the attribution Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia

Updated: November 2024 by Tim Osborn