The UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) is the Government’s statutory, evidence‑based review of how climate change is affecting the UK today and how it is expected to evolve over the coming decades. It sets out the priority climate risks facing the country and informs national policy, investment decisions, and regulatory expectations around resilience.
Compound hazards, including natural disasters associated with storms such as extreme winds floods, and landslides, are important, Dr John Hillier, Reader in Natural Hazard Risk from Loughborough University’s Department of Geography and Environment, explained, because compounding of hazards could cause the implications of the constituent events to be amplified or focused in time, causing more issues for the people they affect.
The report published today is a technical contribution that informs this 4th CCRA, including expertise from Loughborough University’s Dr John Hillier, which has detailed how multi-hazard sequences – the simultaneous occurrence of multiple natural hazards – will become more common, particularly in wet-windy winters and hot-dry summers.
Dr John Hillier explained: “The high-impact scenarios we envisage are of an adverse season, putting gradual strain on the UK, brought to a potential crisis point by a two-week sequence of intense multi-hazard activity. For instance, a 1976 hot-dry summer peaking in extreme heat over 40°C with many wildfires that terminates in severe thunderstorms. These scenarios are plausible, built on past experience and events in the UK’s National Risk Register, that we feel are more likely than not to occur in the next 30 to 50 years.”
The latest CCRA technical report in 2022 showed that the UK climate baseline had already changed, and that it would continue to diverge from historical norms. This shift in climate is also visible in current climate patterns, including hotter summers, wetter winters, more intense rainfall extremes, rising sea levels, and with increased scientific awareness, there is growing evidence of compound hazard events.
Recent findings also demonstrate that the UK’s hottest days are warming twice as fast as average temperatures, and by the 2070s, London could see up to 41 days above 30°C each year. Winters are now also 21% wetter, with extreme rainfall events up to 2.6 times more likely due to climate change.
The full technical report is available online here.