Understand the impacts of climate change
This stage involves looking in greater detail at the impacts climate change has now on Scotland and on your organisation or community in particular, and the effect these changes will have in the future.
This stage of the process includes:
Learn about past climate trends and future projections
There are many websites with films, data, graphs and presentations that tell you about recent past and projected future changes in Scotland’s climate. See our ‘Why adapt’ for details on how Scotland’s climate has changed and is projected to change. This section also has links to external sources.
Understand how your place, assets, services or priorities have been affected by severe weather events and long term changes in climate.
We are used to talking about the weather in Scotland and most people can remember being affected by severe weather at some point. Whilst severe weather events are the most memorable we shouldn’t ignore longer term trends such as sea level rise and gradual long term increases in temperature and rainfall.
Recording details about the impacts of severe weather events and long term changes in climate can be very helpful in increasing understanding of how climate change is impacting your organisation or community.
These are some ideas of what you can do at this stage:
- Communities can hold a discussion about how the weather is affecting them through an Are We Ready? workshop or communicate climate change impacts by making climate stories
- Public sector organisations can complete a weather impacts table (page 18 Five Steps to managing your climate risks) to record details of how assets and services have been affected
- Business can use the BACLIAT workshop to identify how weather and climate affect different areas of the business
Consider how your place, assets, services or priorities might be affected as our climate continues to change
The changes in climate that we have observed over the last century will continue and intensify over the coming decades. How may your places, assets, services and priorities be impacted as the climate continues to change?
We need people with local knowledge and different types of skills and expertise to help identify how different areas of life and work will be affected. You should aim to speak to a wide range of people and identify and record information about the climate impacts that are likely to affect your organisation or community.
Using the knowledge from past impacts and the projected changes to the climate, you can identify the sort of challenges and opportunities that you may face.
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Relevant case studies
Assessing current and future climate threats and opportunities
The University of St Andrews carried out a climate impact assessment workshop with staff and senior managers from the Estates department. Read more