UKCP09: 1961-1990 Baseline Summer Heatwave Duration for UK Regions

UKCP09 provides long-term average summer heatwave duration values for the 1961-1990 climate baseline across 14 UK administrative regions and 23 river basins. The dataset was created with financial support from the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and promoted by the UK Climate Impacts Programme. Each regional value is an average of 5 x 5 km grid cell values, provided as space-delimited text files.

Use Cases

• Establishing a historical climate baseline for UK regions based on the 1961-1990 period mentioned in the description.
• Comparing summer heatwave duration between administrative regions and river basins using the regional averages.
• Analyzing long-term trends by using the 30-year baseline averages as a reference point for more recent data.

Strengths

• Provides a standardized 30-year climate baseline (1961-1990) for comparison.
• Covers two distinct spatial units: 14 administrative regions and 23 river basins.
• Values are derived from a consistent 5 x 5 km grid cell resolution.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last updated 2026-07-08 13:31:47.949399; freshness should be verified.

Provenance

Source

Met Office

Collection Method

Each regional value is an average of the 5 x 5 km grid cell values that fall within it.

Time Range

1961-1990

Geography

United Kingdom (14 administrative regions, 23 river basins)