UKCP09: Annual Winter Coldwave Duration Gridded Data for the UK

UKCP09 gridded datasets provide annual values of winter coldwave duration, measured as the sum of days where air temperature exceeds a 22°C threshold from November to April. The Met Office created these projections with financial support from the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Data access requires registration on the Met Office website.

Use Cases

• Modeling winter coldwave frequency and intensity based on the described temperature threshold metric.
• Assessing climate change impacts on winter temperature extremes for the UK region.
• Validating regional climate models using gridded historical coldwave duration data.
• Informing policy and adaptation strategies for sectors vulnerable to cold weather events.

Strengths

• Data is part of the authoritative UK Climate Projections (UKCP09) framework.
• Financial support and promotion are explicitly attributed to Defra and the UK Climate Impacts Programme.
• The specific temperature threshold (22°C) and seasonal period (November-April) for coldwave definition are clearly stated.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset scale are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the UK-focused uk_data source.

Provenance

Source

Met Office (UK), with support from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Collection Method

Likely generated from climate model projections and observational data as part of the UKCP09 initiative.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:32:44.015802; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United Kingdom (implied by UKCP09 and Met Office source).