Climate change can often seem rather remote especially when the discussion is about global averages which appears to have little relevance to local experiences. But, those global changes are already affecting people, even if they don’t fully realise it, and effective communication of this issue is critical. We use long observations and well-understood physical principles to highlight how global emissions influence local flood risk in one river basin in the UK.

We evaluate how rivers are expected to change in the near future compared to the recent past in the context of a warming world. We show that important rivers of the world will notably change their flows, mainly during peaks, exceeding the variations that rivers used to exhibit. Such a magnitude of changes may produce more frequent floods with severe consequences in metropolitan areas, alter the management of dams affecting hydropower generation, and potentially affect the ocean's circulation.

We examine a severe windstorm that occurred in February 1903 and caused significant damage in the UK and Ireland. Using newly digitized weather observations from the time of the storm, combined with a modern weather forecast model, allows us to determine why this storm caused so much damage. We demonstrate that the event is one of the most severe windstorms to affect this region since detailed records began. The approach establishes a new tool to improve assessments of risk from extreme weather.

The 18.6-year lunar nodal cycle arises from variations in the angle of the Moon's orbital plane and affects ocean tides. In this work we use a climate model to examine the effect of this cycle on the ocean, surface, and atmosphere. The timing of anomalies is consistent with the so-called slowdown in global warming and has implications for when global temperatures will exceed 1.5 ℃ above pre-industrial levels. Regional anomalies have implications for seasonal climate areas such as Europe.

We use a set of model simulations of the 20th century to demonstrate that the uncertainty in the cooling effect of man-made aerosol emissions has a wide range of impacts on global monsoons. For the weakest cooling, the impact of aerosol is overpowered by greenhouse gas (GHG) warming and monsoon rainfall increases in the late 20th century. For the strongest cooling, aerosol impact dominates over GHG warming, leading to reduced monsoon rainfall, particularly from 1950 to 1980.