Climate Trends and Future Projections in Scotland. Deliverable D2.1a for the Project D5-2 Climate Change Impacts on Natural Capital

This report is a product of the Scottish Government Strategic Research Programme project JHI-D5-2
‘Climate Change Impacts on Natural Capital’. The purpose of this report is to present spatial and temporal
information on how the climate has changed in Scotland since 1960 and is projected to change in the
future. It also demonstrates the increases in analytical and visualisation capabilities developed within the
project. The aim is to present a set of maps on trends of general summaries (means, totals etc.) to illustrate
the temporal and spatial variability of changes to the climate.  We present mapped evidence of observed
trends in the spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation and temperature across Scotland between
1960 – 1989 and 1990 – 2019. Using data from the UKCP18 climate projections, estimates are made and
presented as maps and charts of how these observed trends may change in the future. The objective of the
research presented here is to illustrate a range of visualisation methods to establish the underpinning
capabilities to support assessments of the impacts of climate change on Natural Capital assets.