The Met Office data portal has been launched to firmly place its essential climate data into the hands of those that need it
The Met Office’s Climate Data Portal has recently gone live, giving all organisations improved and free access to our climate data and other resources, allowing them to better understand and respond to climate change.
The move is a vital progression in putting our pioneering science data into the hands of the people who need it, in a format that is most useful, to enable people to make better decisions to stay safe and thrive.
Heatwaves, floods or droughts
Built using geospatial technology from Esri UK, the portal makes it easier for businesses or government organisations to integrate open climate data with their own data and reveal the future impact of extreme conditions on their operations, including looking at the effect of heatwaves, floods or droughts.
By investigating their physical climate risks today and over the next 50 to 100 years at a local, regional and national level, users will be better equipped to create effective action plans.
Part of the Met Office’s wider strategy to maximise the benefits of its data and knowledge relating to world-renowned scientific excellence in weather, climate and environmental forecasts, the portal currently contains around 60 different data layers, as well as guidance and information.
In future, we’ll be adding more climate data guided by the users.
More accessible formats
Combining Met Office expertise and authoritative data with Esri’s geospatial tools, the portal presents complex scientific climate projections in easy-to-use formats, ready to visualise and analyse in GIS and non-spatial applications or integrate into business processes for improved decision-making. The main users of the new Met Office data portal are expected to be within government, construction, urban planning, land use, transport and energy industries, but it is open to everyone including academia and community groups.
Understanding the impacts of extreme temperatures
As an example, data on temperature extremes can be used to understand the impacts on transport infrastructure, health and energy demand. For example:
Days above 25C can indicate when transport could be disrupted due to overheating of railway infrastructure.
Nights above 20C can indicate heat stress as night-time temperatures impact the body’s ability to recover from higher daytime temperatures.
Days below 0C can indicate transport disruption and increased energy demand for heating.
During a pilot phase of the portal, which saw almost 4,000 users access the data, some of the most popular data included projections of summer days (where the temperature reaches over 25C) for different global warming scenarios.
Climate change decision-making
One early user in the beta phase was Forestry & Land Scotland, the organisation responsible for managing Scotland’s national forest estate.
Organisations like this rely on authoritative and easy-to-access information for climate change decision-making in land planning and management. Critically, it lets them understand the local and regional climate differences at a glance.
The Met Office data portal will also help provide insight to help organisations start their response to regulatory climate reporting such as TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures), which is being rolled out across the UK.
Preparing for extreme weather
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.
Using the data, 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 that new regulations, linked to climate change will require.
Human-induced climate change is having more and more impact on our lives and it’s crucial that new technologies are harnessed to make sure the insights from science are understood and are getting into the hands of people who make decisions.
Professor Jason Lowe OBE
Head of climate services
Met Office
Tel: +44 (0)370 900 0100
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