UKCP09: Annual Growing Degree Days Time Series for the UK

UKCP09 time series of growing degree days, a measure of heat accumulation above a 5.5°C baseline. 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. The data is hosted by the Met Office and requires registration to access.

Use Cases

• Modeling crop yield potential based on annual heat accumulation.
• Analyzing long-term climate change trends in growing season length.
• Projecting future agricultural suitability under different climate scenarios based on temperature thresholds.

Strengths

• Data is part of the authoritative UK Climate Projections (UKCP09) framework.
• Supported by a government department (Defra) and a recognized climate program (UKCIP).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Access requires registration on the Met Office website, adding a step to data acquisition.

Provenance

Source

Met Office

Collection Method

Climate projection modeling, likely derived from temperature data.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:32:32.693493; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United Kingdom