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Starting in 2001, researchers from the Unit undertook a retrospective analysis of data from the Great Storm of October 1987 which led to them identifying and understanding a region of extremely strong winds within some storms. They termed these winds a "sting jet". In collaboration with the Met Office, the researchers developed ways to identify sting jets in current and imminent weather and, later, methods to forecast these extremely damaging events up to a several days in advance. These techniques are now used in the UK National Severe Weather Warning Service (NSWWS) and in European storm forecasts. Since the development of this new early warning capability, events have been too few to compile proper statistics; however, there is general agreement amongst the emergency services, local government officials and insurers that the improved warnings of extreme winds have saved lives, minimised disruption and generated considerable cost savings.
Information on the potential impacts of climate change across the world, and on the effects of policies designed to reduce emissions, is fundamental to inform the development of climate mitigation and adaptation policy. Research conducted at the Unit has been critical to the establishment of a target 80% cut in UK carbon emissions by 2050, as enforced by the Climate Change Act (2008), and provided an affirmation of the relevance of the 2f0b0C global mean temperature rise target central to national and international climate mitigation policy. Research into the global consequences of climate change, particularly for water resources and river flooding, has been used by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to assess the impacts of un-mitigated climate change and the effects of different mitigation policy options.
Over one quarter of the estimated 886 million undernourished people in the world live in sub-Saharan Africa and their lives and livelihoods depend critically on rain-fed agriculture. However this region has lacked the equipment and the infrastructure to monitor rainfall. Over the past 20 years, the Unit's TAMSAT (Tropical Applications of Meteorology using SATellite Data and Ground-Based Observations) research group has developed a reliable and robust means for monitoring rainfall, appropriate for use in Africa. In addition, the Unit pioneered the use of such data to predict crop yields over large areas. TAMSAT data and methods are now used in food security (to anticipate drought and predict crop and livestock yields); in health planning (to predict outbreaks of rain-promoted diseases such as malaria); in aid (to guide the allocation and distribution of relief food and water); and in economic planning (to plan mitigation activities and investment in infrastructure). The Unit's programme of development and validation has extended the method to all of Africa, at all times of year. Our work with national meteorological services in Africa has helped them to build their own capabilities and to both contribute to TAMSAT and exploit it. The data provided by TAMSAT has had major impact in increasing the resilience of African populations to weather and climate, saving and improving the quality of lives, and strengthening economies in developing nations.
Statistical modelling of storms by Professor David Stephenson and co-workers in the mathematics institute at the U. of Exeter, has improved the understanding and thereby the pricing of insurance risk due to European windstorms and tropical cyclones. Temporal clustering in these catastrophic natural hazards has been quantified using novel process-based statistical models, which have then been implemented by industry to improve insurance pricing, e.g. on the integrated financial platform used by Willis actuaries to provide a more reliable view of risk as required by EU solvency 2 regulation. This research has also raised awareness in the industry about storm clustering, and has stimulated significant improvements in the main vendor catastrophe models, which are the main tools used by insurance companies to price European windstorm insurance.
Protecting London from the threat of flooding is of prime importance to the nation. Work in the Unit on regional sea-level rise and on the effect of storm surges was used in the Environment Agency's Thames Estuary 2100 (TE2100) plan to assess potential change in risk. The Unit's work estimated a very unlikely maximum rise in sea level of 2.7m by 2100, considerably lower than the previous worst-case scenario of 4.2m. It confirmed that 90 centimetres was the figure that should be used for developing the plan. TE2100 concluded that a second Thames Barrier (estimated cost £10-20 billion at today's prices) would not be needed not by 2030, but may be needed by 2070. Our results have been used to define procedures for the monitoring of regional sea and Thames water levels over the next few decades, and to review decision-making procedures to ensure that the risk of flooding in London is kept within acceptable levels, while avoiding unnecessary costs
The 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano, Iceland caused prolonged closure of European airspace, costing the global airline industry an estimated $200 million per day and disrupting 10 million passengers. We have developed and tested models that predict the dispersal of volcanic ash and developed instrumentation to monitor ash clouds during flight bans and used it to test the models. Our research played a key role in establishing the need for a flight ban and in the adoption of a more flexible approach to its staged lifting as the emergency continued. It also led to increased levels of readiness and to new emergency procedures being put in place across Europe which have minimised the economic costs and human inconvenience without an unacceptable rise in the risks to passengers and crew. The new procedures safely eliminated unnecessary disruption to flights in the latter days of the crisis and during the subsequent eruption of another Icelandic volcano, Grímsvötn in 2011.
Research conducted within the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Centre has underpinned the development of innovative extreme weather services for the real-time monitoring of global tropical storms and European extreme weather. These services have achieved significant commercial and humanitarian impacts worldwide. Within the REF impact period these impacts included £1.319 million of income generated by sales of commercial products; 24,000 subscribers receiving free storm alerts and/or seasonal forecasts; seasonal forecasts distributed to reinsurance companies worldwide; and a contribution to lives saved in Bangladesh from tropical storm Mahasen (2013). Twenty-two international organisations have also benefited from the commercial extreme weather services; for example, they support the claims division at RSA in assessing risk, allocating resources and detecting fraudulent weather claims; and they enable the Norwegian Hull Club to alert its portfolio of over 9,200 vessels worldwide to steer clear of approaching dangerous storms.
The Fault Dynamics Research Group (FDRG) have designed and executed analogue experiments to replicate the 3D/4D geometry of oil and gas exploration targets. The main beneficiaries are the international petroleum industry. The research is "pivotal to British Petroleum's subsurface developments" (R. Humphries BP 2012) in determining the number of multi-million pound wells required to access reserves. FDRG models "changed the way seismic data (was) interpreted" (Chief Scientist, Geoscience Australia 2012) in particular in the NW Australian frontier with "BP Exploration (Alpha)....work program(s) of $600 million" (Chief Scientist, Geoscience Australia 2012).
Human activity leads to the emission of many greenhouse gases that differ from carbon dioxide (CO2) in their ability to cause climate change. International climate policy requires the use of an "exchange rate" to place emissions of such gases on a "CO2-equivalent" scale. These exchange rates are calculated using "climate emission metrics" (hereafter "metrics") which enable the comparison of the climate effect of the emission of a given gas with emissions of CO2. Research in the Unit has contributed directly to (i) the calculation of inputs required for such metrics, (ii) the compilation of listings of the effects for a large number of gases and (iii) the consideration of alternative metric formulations. During the assessment period this work has been used in the implementation of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008-2012) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and in decisions and discussions (which began in 2005) on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol's second commitment period (2013-2020), as well to intergovernmental debate on aspects of the use of metrics in climate agreements.
Research by Lisa Emberson has led to tighter controls on air pollutant precursor emissions of ozone (O3) across Europe benefiting crop and forest productivity, and grassland species composition. Emberson's research led to new risk assessment methods, based on knowledge of atmospheric exchange processes and plant eco-physiology, which assess O3 uptake and related damage using novel flux-based `Critical Levels'. These new methods are being used to optimise emission reduction policy by 26 parties (member states) who have signed and ratified the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Gothenburg Protocol established under the Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP).