Scotland's Projected Temperature 

As the world begins to experience the climate changes scientists once predicted, fears of increasing temperatures and extreme weather have become reality. As discussed in the ‘Aberdeen City Temperature Trends’ sheet, Aberdeen has already experienced around a degree of temperature increase since the early 70s. This story is mirrored across the UK, with the country now 1.25°C warmer than the 1961-1990 average (RMetS, 2024). 2023 alone was 1.66°C warmer than the 1961-1990 period, marking the 2nd hottest year the country has ever experienced (Kendon et al, 2024). 

The most striking metric with which to understand these rising temperatures is 'days of extreme heat'. These days pose a real risk to human health, with the mortality risk in Scotland rising by 4% during such events (Wan et al, 2022).  Fig. 1 displays the average daily maximum temperature for hypothetical weeks of extreme heat, comparing the 1970s to the 2080s (Coley, Liu and Fosas, 2023). In the 70s, extreme heat events were experienced as no more than ~20°C in Scotland. By 2080, these events will instead likely manifest as temperatures in the high 20s to low 30s as far north as John O' Groats. 

The UK’s transition into increasing extreme heat has already begun, in both temperature and frequency. The number of days where temperatures surpassed 30°C have increased three-fold since 1961-1990 (Kendon et al, 2024), while the 40°C threshold was crossed for the first time on record in Lincolnshire in 2022 (Met Office, 2023). 

Some degree of climate change is already set in stone, but the scale of these effects will be determined by the success of climate change mitigation. Simply put, the greater humanity’s continued emissions, the higher the temperature the planet will experience. In the UK, this will likely translate to the outcomes shown in fig. 2. Even in the northerly position of the East Grampian region some degree of warming is inevitable, ranging from a likely 2°C by 2050, to as much as 5°C by 2080 should emissions fail to reduce (BBC, 2021).