Journal of the Institute of Conservation, 2014

Vol. 37, No. 2, 85 –93, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19455224.2014.916226

Peter Brimblecombe

Refining climate change threats to heritage

Keywords
future English climate; salt weathering; mould growth; rainfall; humidity; insect damage

Introduction
The foggy dampness of the English climate can assume an almost mythic
character. For 2000 years we seem to have relished Strabo’s description:
‘weather is more rainy than snowy; and . . . the sun is to be seen for only
three or four hours round about midday’. Despite the resilience of this
description we are all aware of possible changes to climate over the
century ahead. This article will argue that simplifications that reduce
climate to being simple changes in warmth, windiness or wetness, while
raising the profile of climate change, could easily distort our responses.
The problems of reducing the complexity of climate change in this way
are particularly troublesome to preventive conservation, which requires
an increasing focus on likely threats posed by a changing climate. In
recent years there has been much analysis of projected future climate and
in the UK The Climate Change Act 2008 has required public and statutory
organisations to consider how they can adapt to future climates.1 The heri- 1 The Climate Change Act 2008, http://
tage field has responded with planning documents, policy statements and a www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/
growing body of research. In Europe this concern was evident in projects 27/contents (accessed 11 March 2014).
such as NOAH’S ARK and Climate for Culture, while in the UK this was
embodied in Climate Change and the Historic Environment and a number of
projects that emerged under the Heritage Science programme jointly sup-
ported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).2 2 See for example Christina Sabbioni,
The study presented here aims to remind us that climate is complex, with Peter Brimblecombe and May Cassar,
many subtle features and an important regional character. Projections of eds, The Atlas of Climate Change Impact
on European Cultural Heritage: Scientific
future climate add additional notions of societal scenarios and the probabil- Analysis and Management Strategies, no.
istic nature of the outcomes. Such detail has to be interpreted into simpler 19 (London: Anthem Press, 2010);
terms when adapted to policy, expressed in executive reports or as state- R. Kilian, J. Leissner, F. Antretter,
ments to the public. While necessary, simplifications can obscure the K. Holl and A. Holm, ‘Modeling
nature of change. This article explores the likely changes in the dampness Climate Change Impact on Cultural
Heritage—The European Project
of the English climate over the period through to 2100 and raises a Climate for Culture’, in WTA Colloquium
concern that oversimplification has the potential to undermine the develop- ‘Effect of Climate Change on Built Heri-
ment of climate change policy with respect to heritage. It does not address tage’, Eindhoven, Netherlands, 11th– 12th
the question of error in the predicted climate, but it is hoped that it will March (2010); May Cassar and
R. Pender, ‘Climate Change and the His-
encourage the development of more relevant and focussed climate par-
toric Environment’ (2003), http://www.
ameters and better ways of assessing long-term climate effects on heritage. bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/graduate/csh/resear
ch/projects/collections-demography
(accessed 11 March 2014).
Method
This article uses meteorological data and climate projections extracted from
Met Office sources. The historical station data came from the Met Office
website and daily observations were taken from the Met Office Integrated
Data Archive System (MIDAS) dataset, which includes land and marine
surface daily observations from 1853 and is held online at the British
Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC); future projections were taken from the
Met Office’s Hadley Model, referred to in this article as HadCM3 and as

(Received 30 November 2013; Accepted 15 April 2014)

# 2014 Icon, The Institute of Conservation

86
3 MIDAS UK Meteorological Office, Met
Office Integrated Data Archive System
(MIDAS) Land and Marine Surface Stations
Data (1853–current), [Internet], NCAS
British Atmospheric Data Centre (2012),
http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/view/badc.nerc.
ac.uk__ATOM__dataent_ukmo-midas
(accessed 11 March 2014); HadCM3,
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/
modelling-systems/unified-model/clim
ate-models/hadcm3 and UKCP09
(accessed 11 March 2014); http://ukcli
mateprojections.defra.gov.uk/ (accessed
11 March 2014).
4 Here the slope was determined using
the tool provided by Single Case
Research, http://www.singlecaserese
arch.org/calculators/theil-sen (accessed
11 March 2014).
5 Reindert J. Haarsma, Wilco Hazeleger,
Camiel Severijns, Hylke Vries, Andreas
Sterl, Richard Bintanja, Geert Jan Olden-
borgh and Henk W. Brink, ‘More Hurri-
canes to Hit Western Europe due to
Global Warming’, Geophysical Research
Letters 40 (2013): 1783– 8.
Brimblecombe
UKCP09.3 The particular details are defined in this article as the material is
presented.
Statistical analysis used a number of online tools. The slope of the line for
the time series analysis was determined as a Theil – Sen slope,4 which is dis-
tribution free and is efficient with non-normal or skewed data. It can be
thought of as the median slope. This method of determining the rate of
change is used throughout this article and confidence exceeded the 99%
level, except in those instances mentioned at the appropriate point in the
text.
Results
1 Warmer, wetter, windier?
Figure 1 explores the potential for gross predictions of change in the English
climate to reveal whether conditions are likely to become warmer, wetter or
windier. The temperatures come from the HadCM3 run under the A2 scen-
ario that should give large changes in climate, so is not optimistic about our
ability to curb global emissions of greenhouse gases. The projections of
annual temperature are for a large grid cell that covers what can loosely
be thought of as central England (shown as the square on the inset map
in Fig. 1a). This modelled output runs as daily values from 1860 through
to the end of the current century. Daily temperatures, typically the
average of the daily maximum and minimum, can be averaged across a
year to yield the annual average. It is clear that the notion that temperature
will increase is borne out and suggests quite a striking change, perhaps
Fig. 1 (a) Annual temperatures in central England. Temperatures from 1860 to 2099 derived
from HadCM3 run under the A2 scenario from 1860 to 2099. The map shows the extent of
the Hadley grid cell used in this article. (b) Annual precipitation from HadCM3A2. (c) The
probability of winds in the west of the UK at Beaufort scale 11 and 12 at present and at the
end of the twenty-first century from the work of Haarsma et al.5
Journal of the Institute of Conservation, Vol. 37 No. 2 September 2014
Refining climate change threats to heritage 87

some 48C with much of the change apparent throughout the current
century.
The case for a substantial change in rainfall is less clear as the differences in
annual rainfall amount show more scatter (Fig. 1b). If anything, the trends
under HadCM3A2 suggest an overall decrease in rainfall. The Theil – Sen
slope implies a decrease in annual rainfall of 0.21 mm a – 1 (a – 1, per
annum) for the entire record and for the current century a somewhat more
rapid decline in annual rainfall amounting to a decrease of 0.55 mm a – 1.
Thus the total amount of water delivered to the ground each year will
decrease. Nevertheless seasonal changes may be quite different.
Wind is somewhat more difficult to present as a time series. Figure 1c
shows the percentage probability of winds in the west of the UK at Beaufort
scale 11 and 12 across the months for the present and the end of the current
century.6 Future winters show a somewhat higher probability of these 6 Haarsma et al., ‘More Hurricanes to
extreme winds. Hit’, 1783–8.
The evidence suggests that temperature will very probably increase and
extreme winds may be more common with the potential to damage struc-
tures. Nevertheless temperature and wind are neglected in this article,
which will focus on dampness, as these changes seem open to a wide
range of interpretations. The article explores the evidence for changes in
the dampness in England and the potential it has for supporting the obser-
vations made of damage to our heritage, by examining the meteorological
evidence.

2 Increasing dampness in England

Water is a critical factor in damage to heritage. In some ways it may even be
more critical than temperature such that 10 years ago, when heritage man-
agers were asked to rank the potential problems faced in a changing
English climate, they listed these as:

1 Rainfall
2 Flooding and soil moisture content
3 Extreme weather (winds and rainfall)
4 Temperature and relative humidity
5 Pests and diseases—(humidity and temperature affect pests)7 7 Cassar and Pender, ‘Climate Change
and the Historic Environment’.
The current Met Office advice to industry and the public sector, though
sometimes brief, is carefully worded. Impacts on the water industry are

Fig. 2 (a) Observed annual rainfall and (b) average relative humidity (RH) from observations at
Heathrow.

Journal of the Institute of Conservation, Vol. 37 No. 2 September 2014

88
8 See http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/
services/climate-services/uk/ukcp/im
pacts/water (accessed 11 March 2014).
9 See http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/
services/climate-services/uk/ukcp/
impacts/water (accessed 11 March 2014).
10 RIBA [RIBA, Climate Change Toolkit
(London: Royal Institute of British Archi-
tects, 2009)] has all three parameters:
increased average temperatures,
increased precipitation, more frequent
extreme weather events. Taylor and
Arigoni Ortiz [Tim Taylor and Ramon
Arigoni Ortiz, ‘Impacts of Climate
Change on Domestic Tourism in the UK:
A Panel Data Estimation’, Tourism Econ-
omics 15, no. 4 (2009): 803–12] are more
careful in arguing that: winters will
become milder, wetter and windier, so
ski resorts will suffer.
11 See http://www.timberinconstruct
ion.co.uk/features/climate-change-opens
-opportunities-wood-protection (accessed
11 March 2014).
12 Peter Brimblecombe and Paul Lanke-
ster, ‘Long-Term Changes in Climate
and Insect Damage in Historic
Houses’, Studies in Conservation 58, no.
1 (2013): 13– 22; Paul Lankester and
Peter Brimblecombe, ‘The Impact of
Future Climate on Historic Interiors’,
Science of the Total Environment 417
(2012): 248–54; Alessandra Bonazza,
Palmira Messina, Cristina Sabbioni,
Carlota M. Grossi and Peter Brimble-
combe, ‘Mapping the Impact of
Climate Change on Surface Recession
of Carbonate Buildings in Europe’,
Science of the Total Environment 407
(2009): 2039–50; Carlota M. Grossi and
Peter Brimblecombe, ‘Past and Future
Colouring Patterns of Historic Stone
Buildings’, Revista Materiales de Con-
strucción 58 (2008): 143– 60.
13 Peter Brimblecombe, ‘Temporal
Humidity Variations in the Heritage
Climate of South East England’, Heritage
Science 1, no. 1 (2013): 1 –11; ‘UK
Climate—Historic Station Data’,
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/
weather/climate-historic/#?tab=climate
Historic (accessed 11 March 2014).
14 Peter Brimblecombe, ‘Heritage Cli-
matology’, in Climate Change and Cul-
tural Heritage, ed. R.-A. Lefevre and
C. Sabbioni (Bari, Italy: Edipuglia,
2010), 57– 64.
15 See for example M. Kottek, J. Grieser,
C. Beck, B. Rudolf and F. Rubel, ‘World
Map of the Köppen– Geiger Climate
Classification Updated’, Meteorologische
Zeitschrift 15, no. 3 (2006): 259 –63.
Brimblecombe
described as ‘ . . . significant changes in rainfall patterns . . . [and] the
Anglian region will be subject to more extreme levels of rainfall’.8 Of the
road industry it said that the ‘ . . . network is susceptible to the weather—
from extreme temperatures melting roads, to heavy rainfall leading to
flooding’.9
Thus far this all looks to be carefully guided by the model projections, but
increasingly the impacts of climate change have been further simplified to
the notion of warmer, wetter or windier10 alluded to in the introduction.
The timber construction industry, as an example, claims: ‘A warmer,
wetter climate for the UK is now regarded as inevitable according to
Defra UK Climate Projections 2009. Another inevitability is that this
brings with it an increased risk of fungal decay and insect attack to
untreated wood’.11 While it might be easy to find this amusing and
imagine commercial forces behind such bold assertions, the heritage
sector is not free from such interpretations. Often now at conferences and
meetings there are references to the increasing rainfall and humid con-
ditions as a result of climate change raising the spectre of damage to
fabrics or furniture, while enhancing insect and mould growth, and out-
doors increasing the rate of recession and discoloration to building stone.12
3 Trends in observed rainfall and relative humidity
It is sometimes argued that there is already observational evidence for
changing rainfall and relative humidity. Figure 2 presents long-term obser-
vations of rainfall and relative humidity (RH) records for Heathrow taken
from the historic station data and material from the MIDAS site.13 These
observations suggest that neither rainfall nor relative humidity is seen to
increase, indeed humidity if anything shows a pronounced decline.
These are of course merely measurements of ambient climate conditions
and may not reflect the experience of observations of damage indoors.
However, there is a need to look for evidence because if a changing
pattern of damage is to be attributed to a changing climate it certainly
requires that the climate should actually change. Of course, it may be
that the changes are rather more subtle than imagined and arguably specific
heritage climatologies14 should be considered rather than those climatolo-
gies that are derived from conventional parameters such as temperature
and precipitation (for example those used by Köppen and beloved of the
geographers who create school atlases).15
4 Trends in more specific parameters
As explained above, the observations presented in Figs 1 and 2 are not very
finely tuned. Figure 3 attempts to express climate projections in terms of
parameters that might be more relevant to heritage impacts. In particular
it is likely that the seasonal patterns of precipitation will change. Figure
3a shows the winter rainfall (December, January, February) each year esti-
mated for the central England grid cell from 1961 to the end of the
current century. This shows a slight increase (0.37 mm a – 1) across the
period. This increase in winter rainfall has become reasonably well
known in the heritage field and may partially justify the claim of a wetter
future for England. The summer holiday period (July, August, September),
by contrast, is likely to get drier over the century with rainfall decreasing by
some 0.8 mm a – 1 across the entire period, but this change takes place
mostly in the last half of the current century (Fig. 3b).
Outdoor heritage structures may well be more sensitive to increased fre-
quency of wetting and drying events or increased rainfall intensity, than
rainfall amount. The number of days that are rather wet where daily rainfall
exceeds 10 mm is predicted for the central England grid cell from 1961 to
the end of the current century using HadCM3A2. This is shown in Fig. 3c
Journal of the Institute of Conservation, Vol. 37 No. 2 September 2014
Refining climate change threats to heritage 89

Fig. 3 (a) Central England winter rainfall (December, January, February) from HadCM3A2. (b) Rainfall for the summer holiday period (July,
August, September). (c) The number of rainy days (.10 mm) in Central England. (d) The number of dry days (,0.1 mm). (e) Scheffer index
for fungal attack in Central England. (f) Number of summer (June, July, August) and winter rain days (December, January, February).

and suggests an increase, but in an almost contradictory fashion the

number of dry days where rain is less than a tenth of a millimetre also
increases (Fig. 3d). Thus rainfall may decrease slightly in terms of the
total amount delivered, but it will arrive in larger daily amounts. Wet
and dry days may be especially relevant to heritage because saturation of
stone or corrosion of metal could be dependent on the frequency of
wetting events rather than the amount of rain that falls.
Rainfall can also be combined with other meteorological parameters to
create indices of particular significance to heritage. The Scheffer index
(SI), designed to give an indication of wood decay, is an example.
There are more elaborate indices and the descriptor of wood moisture
content may be better as a predictor.16 However, the Scheffer index is 16 Charles Carll, Decay Hazard (Scheffer)
very simple: Index Values Calculated from 1971–2000
Climate Normal Data (United States
Department of Agriculture, Forest

m=12 Service, Forest Products Laboratory,
SI = (Tm − 2)(Dm − 3)/16.7 2009).
m=1

where T is the average monthly temperature (oC) and D the number of days
each month (m) where rainfall exceeds 0.25 mm. The terms (T – 2) and (D – 3)
are only used where they are both positive and the products are then
summed and divided by the factor 16.7. The estimated Scheffer index for
central England is shown to increase across the period as plotted in Fig.
3e. This increase is significant at the 90% level, but tends to be driven by
increases in winter temperature as the number of winter days with rain
(.0.25 mm) remains unchanged across the period, while the days with
rain in summer decline sharply (Fig. 3f).

Journal of the Institute of Conservation, Vol. 37 No. 2 September 2014

90
17 Lankester and Brimblecombe, ‘The
Impact of Future Climate on Historic
Interiors’.
18 Lankaster and Brimblecombe, ‘The
Impact of Future Climate on Historic
Interiors’.
19 This material comes from the
UKCP09 site, http://www.ukcip.org.
uk/ and the A1FI emissions scenarios,
which imagine: ‘A future world of
very rapid economic growth, low popu-
lation growth and rapid introduction of
new and more efficient technology.
Major underlying themes are economic
and cultural convergence and capacity
building, with a substantial reduction
in regional differences in per capita
income. In this world, people pursue
personal wealth rather than environ-
mental quality’. See http://www.ipcc-
data.org/sres/ddc_sres_emissions.html
(accessed 11 March 2014).
Brimblecombe
However, it could be argued that much of this analysis is not relevant for
heritage because our most sensitive items are stored indoors. Simple esti-
mates that propagate temperature and relative humidity indoors in historic
houses without active climate control suggest an increase in temperature,
but only modest changes to indoor relative humidity.17 However, there is
a potential for a higher frequency of loss of control in properties that
have adopted conservation heating. Nevertheless conservation heating
still represents a sensible choice under a warmer climate as it continues
to offer a level of protection from damp conditions.18
5 Spatial issues
It is also important to consider the spatial variation in the parameters. These
will not be the same everywhere and this spatial variation can be mapped
using the UKCP09 projections on a 25 km grid. Figure 4 shows the relative
change (as a percentage) in winter precipitation (December, January, Febru-
ary) from the recent past (1960– 1989) through to the 30-year period
2070 – 2099 under a high emission scenario (A1F). This is plotted for the
50% probability level and suggests a median likelihood that much of
central England will experience a 10– 20% increase in winter precipitation,
although some areas will be less affected by this and along the western
coasts this winter increase could be much larger. It is not really desirable
to show a single probability map but consider it in relation to other probabil-
ities. Considering the less likely 90% probability level (i.e. the level at which
there is a 90% probability that the change will be less than this amount
suggested under the projections), this winter rainfall increase could poten-
tially be as much as 50% over central England.19
6 Trends in observed damage
Establishing the rate at which damage occurs and determining whether it is
increasing is not especially easy. There is a perception problem with simple
observations of damage as damaged surfaces never get better, so objects
appear increasingly deteriorated over time. Thus it is necessary to make
fairly careful measurements or observations to establish an increased
Fig. 4 Map of the median increase in winter (December, January, February) precipitation in the
UK for 2070– 2099, expressed as a percentage of its current value using the UKCP09 projections
under high emission scenario A1F.
Journal of the Institute of Conservation, Vol. 37 No. 2 September 2014
Refining climate change threats to heritage 91

Fig. 5 (a) Annual change in soil moisture as the height of the water column in the top 1 m of soil
(i.e. the ‘rootzone’) for central England under HadCM3A2. (b) The difference between the
maximum and minimum relative humidity each year.

damage rate or that pressure on the object has increased. Observations of

damage over long time periods remain rare, although dosimetry has
become more common. There are a few long-term records, such as that from
the external balustrade at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Here is a nice case
study which has been monitored and the rate of damage can be tracked
over more than 250 years, although with greater frequency recently.20 20 Peter Brimblecombe and Carlota
Indoors it is harder to find good sequences of measurements and most M. Grossi, ‘Millennium-Long Recession
of Limestone Facades in London’,
frequently it is necessary to rely on qualitative spot observations made at
Environmental Geology 56, no. 3–4 (2008):
often quite variable intervals. It may be that historic properties have 463–71; Rob Inkpen, Heather Viles,
more fungal attacks now than in the past or that insects are being found Cherith Moses and Brian Baily, ‘Model-
more frequently. However, it is worth noting that these often involve ling the Impact of Changing Atmospheric
only a small number of observations so provide little sense of statistical Pollution Levels on Limestone Erosion
reliability for comparison against climate measurements. Even where Rates in Central London, 1980–2010’,
Atmospheric Environment (2012): 521–529.
large numbers of observations are available, as for example insect catch,
correlating this with climate is not always a simple matter.21 21 Peter Brimblecombe, Caroline Brim-
blecombe, David Thickett and Dee
Lauder, ‘Statistics of Insect Catch
7 Concerns of heritage managers within Historic Properties’, Heritage
The previous sections have emphasised the caution required when adopting Science 1 (2013): 34; Peter Brimblecombe
and Caroline Brimblecombe, ‘Trends in
raw climate projections as a guide to planning the protection of heritage. Insect Catch within Historic Properties’,
Despite these concerns it is clear that those who seek to manage heritage Journal of Cultural Heritage, submitted:
have given careful thought to such matters. Almost a decade ago the issue doi: 10.1016/j.culher.2014.05.005.
of Climate Change and the Historic Environment was addressed in a University
College London report supported by English Heritage and the UK Climate
Impacts Programme.22 In responses to a questionnaire about the level of 22 Cassar and Pender, ‘Climate Change
concern felt about climate change by heritage managers, some persistent and the Historic Environment’.
issues emerged as important, with a number rather prominent:

Rainfall a problem: ‘The greatest concern for respondents from the buildings
sector was the predicted increases in heavy rainfall.’

Soil moisture drying a worry: ‘Sites will lose stratigraphic integrity if they crack
and heave due to changes in sediment moisture.’

Relative humidity: uncertain, but seasonal changes would be greater.

‘However, it should be noted that if the wet gets wetter and the dry drier,
then both the absolute levels and the fluctuations could be more damaging.’23 23 Cassar and Pender, ‘Climate Change
and the Historic Environment’.
These suggestions for future climate pressures seem to have been well
thought out. There is some support for these views in the output from

Journal of the Institute of Conservation, Vol. 37 No. 2 September 2014

92 Brimblecombe

24 Carlota M. Grossi, Peter Brimble-
combe, Beatriz Menéndez, David Bena-
vente, Ian Harris and Michel Déqué,
‘Climatology of Salt Transitions and
Implications for Stone Weathering’,
Science of the Total Environment 409, no.
13 (2011): 2577–85; Bonazza et al.,
‘Mapping the Impact of Climate
Change’; Grossi and Brimblecombe,
‘Past and Future Colouring Patterns’.
climate models. Extreme rainfall has already been shown in Fig. 3c. The
change in soil moisture in central England can be explored using data
from the Hadley model under the A2 scenario as is shown in Fig. 5a. This
would suggest heritage managers were right to raise concerns that this is
likely to decrease, especially towards the end of the twenty-first century.
The difference between the most humid day and the least humid day is
shown in Fig. 5b, which suggests increases. This is a noisy parameter and
may not be especially useful as it fails to account for the time between that
high and low humidity, which might induce enhanced hygrometric shock.
This is because slow changes in relative humidity may be more easily accom-
modated in materials than rapid changes, which would be likely to appear as
cracks in wood. Additionally there has been much discussion of the potential
change in salt weathering as a response to shifts in relative humidity and its
variation.24 Nevertheless it suggests that heritage managers were sensitive to
the kinds of issues that were likely to be of concern in a changing climate.
Conclusion
As with so much of the approach to the protection of material heritage the
plans need to be specific to the material objects under consideration. This
means that the long-term impact of a climate parameter has to be specific
to the object’s material or site—some materials may fare worse under a
future climate and others better; less freeze– thaw, but perhaps higher
temperatures causing more biological attack from fungi or insects.
Predictions of future climate are essentially probabilistic, so management
response needs to consider likelihood, but this article has limited its focus to
a simple analysis of water as a critical parameter. Change in humidity and
rainfall will affect interiors and exteriors in different ways. The particular
climate parameter that describes changes in dampness especially needs
to be tuned to the material under consideration accounting not only for
absolute magnitude, but its variation and seasonality. An understanding
of the pressures that climate places on heritage should also be coupled
with better ways of measuring long-term damage to materials and objects
and linking these to climate parameters. Without this, ineffective strategies
could be adopted. Fungal growth would be a case where it might be easy to
mistake the effects of future changes in rainfall for that which was driven by
an increase in temperature.
In many ways the fortunate thing about climate is that it changes slowly,
so there is time to consider our responses carefully and base them on a
thoughtful use of evidence. Nevertheless it could also be that slow
changes are too easy to ignore.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank David Thickett and Helen Lloyd for sharing
their thoughts on a warmer– wetter–windier future early in the prep-
aration of this paper.
Abstract
A changing climate places shifting risks on heritage. Future English
climate can be difficult to interpret and the outcomes may be prob-
abilistic and subtle. In spite of this it can be tempting to reduce our
future to one that is warmer or wetter or windier. There is some truth
to such a future, but particularly in the case of water-related vari-
ables the changes are likely to be complex. In terms of total rainfall
and average relative humidity the English climate is likely to
become drier. We have to think more in terms of the heritage
climate; the particular variables likely to threaten heritage. Meteor-
ological parameters affect heritage in different ways. Heavier rain-
fall is likely to affect drainage, while an increasing humidity range
may be important for salt damage. Yet in the case of fungal attack
on outdoor wood it might well be that temperature could be a
more important variable than precipitation. This article calls for a
careful consideration of the observed change in heritage damage
and the climate factors to which this is attributed.
Résumé
«Clarifier les menaces du changement climatique sur le patrimoine»
L’évolution du climat implique des risques variables pour le
patrimoine. Le climat anglais futur peut être difficile à interpréter

Journal of the Institute of Conservation, Vol. 37 No. 2 September 2014

Refining climate change threats to heritage
et son impact probabiliste et subtil. En dépit de cela, il peut être
tentant de réduire notre avenir à un climat plus chaud, plus
humide ou plus venteux. Il y a une certaine part de vérité dans
cette projection mais, en particulier dans le cas des variables
liées à l’eau, les changements sont susceptibles d’être complexes.
En termes de précipitations totales et d’humidité relative
moyenne le climat anglais est susceptible de devenir plus sec.
Nous devons penser davantage en termes de climat autour du
patrimoine, les variables spécifiques étant susceptibles de le
menacer. Les paramètres météorologiques affectent le patrimoine
de différentes manières. Des précipitations plus importantes sont
susceptibles d’affecter le drainage, tandis que des écarts crois-
sants d’humidité peuvent causer des dommages importants dus
aux sels. Pourtant, dans le cas d’une attaque fongique sur du
bois extérieur, la température pourrait bien être une variable
plus significative que les précipitations. Cet article appelle à un
examen attentif des changements observés dans les dégradations
du patrimoine et des facteurs climatiques auxquels ils sont attri-
bués.
Zusammenfassung
„Präzisierung der Bedrohung des kulturellen Erbes durch den Kli-
mawandel“
Der Klimawandel stellt dem kulturellen Erbe sich ändernde
Risiken. Das zukünftige englische Klima wird schwierig zu interpre-
tieren sein und die Ergebnisse subtil und nur ungefähr vorherzusa-
gen. Trotzdem ist es verlockend, unsere Zukunft als eine wärmere,
feuchtere oder windigere darzustellen. Etwas Wahres ist an einer
solchen Zukunft sicherlich dran, allerdings sind die Variablen, die
mit Wasser in Verbindung stehen, sehr komplex. Was die höchste
Niederschlagsmenge und durchschnittliche relative Luftfeuchtig-
keit angeht, wird das englische Klima wahrscheinlich trockener
werden. Wir sollten uns mehr Gedanken über ein Klima des Kul-
turerbes machen; insbesondere darüber welche Variablen das Kul-
turerbe am meisten bedrohen werden. Meteorologische Parameter
werden das Kulturerbe auf verschiedene Weise beeinflussen.
Schwerere Regenfälle werden sicherlich die Entwässerung beein-
flussen, stärkere Schwankungen der relativen Luftfeuchtigkeit
könnten für Salzschäden wichtig sein. Allerdings wäre im Fall
Contact address
Peter Brimblecombe
School of Energy and Environment
City University of Hong Kong
Kowloon
Hong Kong
Email: pbrimble@cityu.edu.hk
Journal of the Institute of Conservation, Vol. 37 No. 2 September 2014
93
eines Pilzbefalls von außengelegenem Holz die Temperatur viel-
leicht ein wichtigeres Parameter als die relative Luftfeuchtigkeit.
Dieser Artikel möchte für die umsichtige Beachtung der beobachte-
ten Veränderungen der Schäden am Kulturerbe plädieren und mit
welchen Klimafaktoren die Schäden in Verbindung gebracht
werden.
Resumen
“Redefinición de los riesgos del cambio climáticos en el patrimonio
cultural”
El cambio climático supone riesgos que cambian en relación con
el patrimonio cultural. Es difı́cil predecir como será el futuro clima
inglés y las interpretaciones que se hagan pueden ser probabilı́sticas
y sutiles. A pesar de ello, puede ser tentador pensar que en el futuro
hará más calor o será más húmedo o ventoso. Hay algo de verdad en
ese futuro, pero especialmente en el caso de las variables relaciona-
das con el agua es probable que los cambios sean complejos. En lo
referente a las precipitaciones y al promedio de la humedad relativa
es probable que el clima inglés se vuelva más seco. Tenemos que
pensar más en términos del clima del patrimonio cultural; las vari-
ables particulares que puedan amenazar al patrimonio. Los paráme-
tros meteorológicos afectan al patrimonio de distintas maneras.
Probablemente, las precipitaciones más fuertes afectaran al
drenaje, mientras que un mayor rango de humedad puede causar
daños provocados por la salinidad. Sin embargo, en el caso de
hongos de madera al aire libre, bien podrı́a ser que la temperatura
podrı́a ser una variable más importante que las precipitaciones.
Este artı́culo pide una cuidadosa consideración de los cambios
observados en el patrimonio y de los factores climáticos a los que
se atribuyen estos cambios.
Biography
Peter Brimblecombe is an atmospheric chemist and currently an
Associate Dean at City University of Hong Kong, but remains a vis-
iting professor at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. He is inter-
ested in air pollution and climate change and has been particularly
interested in their impacts on both indoor and outdoor heritage. His
current research explores the potential change in insect infestation in
the changing indoor environment.
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