Rachel Warren 
Professor of Global Change and Environmental Biology | University of East Anglia
Norwich, UNITED KINGDOM
Her work assesses the risks that climate change poses to humans and ecosystems.
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Biography
Rachel Warren is Professor of Global Climate Change in the Tyndell Centre (for Climate Change) at UEA. Her work assesses the risks that climate change poses to humans and ecosystems. Most recently she has looked at issues of biodiversity, hydrology, agriculture and sustainable development. She has been leading on projects about projecting the impact of climate change on biodiversity at different levels of global warming and exploring how conservation managers can adapt their strategies for conservation to make these more resilient to climate change. She is also involved in a series of UK government-funded projects looking at the physical and economic risks that climate change poises to different countries at differing levels of warming.
Rachel has played a leading author role in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Her early career research (while at the University of Colorado) looked at the depletion of the Ozone layer and then (at Imperial College London) at tropospheric air pollution. Her former work at the NOAA Environmental Research Laboratories provided evidence on the environmental acceptability of CFC substitutes, leading to inclusion of fluorocarbons in the Kyoto Protocol, winning the NOAA Aeronomy Laboratories Outstanding Scientific Paper Award. At Imperial College, my integrated modelling work was used in the development of international UN ECE protocols and to underpin the UK’s participation within these.
Areas of Expertise (5)
Hydrology
Sustainable Development
Climate Change
Ecosystems
Biodiversity
Accomplishments (3)
University of East Anglia Consultancy of the Year Award
2019
University of East Anglia Enterprise and Engagement Award
2014
Environmental Modelling & Software’s Best Paper Award
2008
Education (2)
University of Cambridge: Ph.D., Physics 1989
University of Cambridge: B.A., Natural Sciences 1985
Links (5)
Media Appearances (5)
Climate change driving ‘rapid and widespread’ decline of bumblebees
Carbon Brief online
2020-02-06
The findings are “consistent” with earlier research finding that “climate change is posing a risk to insects”, Prof Rachel Warren, a global change scientist from the University of East Anglia, tells Carbon Brief.
Guest Opinion: ‘Science’ doesn’t support climate alarmism
Calgary Sun online
2019-10-02
One of the lead authors of the report was Rachel Warren of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (located at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom). Suffice to say, Dr. Warren is not a “denier” or stooge for Big Oil. It’s thus very interesting that Warren helped produced a 2018 paper, which says the “economic case for limiting warming to 1.5C is unclear, due to manifold uncertainties. However, it cannot be ruled out that the 1.5C target passes a cost-benefit test.”
IPCC Lead Author’s Research Uncertain About UN Climate Goal
The Beacon online
2019-09-23
Rachel Warren is Professor of Global Change and Environmental Biology at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia, UK. Her research focuses on the production of policy relevant science related to climate change and sustainability.
UN Report: 'One million species threatened with extinction because of humans'
Fox 4 online
2019-05-06
Rachel Warren, professor of global change and environmental biology at the University of East Anglia, told CNN that governments should focus on "the restoration of destroyed or degraded ecosystems with native species [as this] helps to address both biodiversity loss and climate change."
Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius can save world’s species, study shows how
Financial Times online
2018-02-21
“We found that achieving the ultimate goal of the Paris Agreement, to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, would reap enormous benefits for biodiversity – much more so than limiting warming to two degrees Celsius,” Warren said. “Insects are particularly sensitive to climate change. At two degrees Celsius warming, 18 per cent of the 31,000 insects we studied are projected to lose more than half their range,” she said.
Articles (5)
Projected risks associated with heat stress in the UK Climate Projections (UKCP18)
Environmental Research Letters2022 Summer heat extremes in the UK pose a risk to health (amongst other sectors) and this is exacerbated by localised socio-economic factors that contribute to vulnerability. Here, regional climate model simulations from the UK Climate Projections are used to assess how different elements of extreme heat will vary across the UK in the future under global mean surface temperature warming levels of +1.5 °C, +2.0 °C and +3.0 °C above pre-industrial.
Quantification of impacts between 1.5°C and 4°C of global warming on flooding risks in six countries
Climatic Change2022 We project climate change induced changes in fluvial flood risks for six global warming levels between 1.5 and 4 °C by 2100, focusing on the major river basins of six countries. Daily time series of precipitation, temperature and monthly potential evapotranspiration were generated by combining monthly observations, daily reanalysis data and projected changes in the five CMIP5 GCMs also selected in the ISI-MIP fast track project.
Addressing risks to biodiversity arising from a changing climate: the need for ecosystem restoration in the Tana River Basin, Kenya
PLoS One2021 Climate change is projected to have significant effects on the distribution of species globally, but research into the implications in parts of Africa has been limited. Using species distribution modelling, this study models climate change-related risks to the terrestrial biodiversity (birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and plants) of Kenya’s economically-important and ecologically diverse Tana River Basin.
Global costs of protecting against sea-level rise at 1.5 to 4.0 °C
Climatic Change2021 Sea levels will rise, even with stringent climate change mitigation. Mitigation will slow the rate of rise. There is limited knowledge on how the costs of coastal protection vary with alternative global warming levels of 1.5 to 4.0 °C. Analysing six sea-level rise scenarios (0.74 to 1.09 m, 50th percentile) across these warming levels, and five Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, this paper quantifies the economic costs of flooding and protection due to sea-level rise using the Dynamic Interactive Vulnerability Assessment (DIVA) modelling framework.
Assessing the economic impacts of future fluvial flooding in six countries under climate change and socio-economic development
Climatic Change2021 Floods are among the most frequent and costliest natural hazards. Fluvial flood losses are expected to increase in the future, driven by population and economic growth in flood-prone areas, and exacerbated in many regions by effects of climate change on the hydrological cycle. Yet, studies assessing direct and indirect economic impacts of fluvial flooding in combination with climate change and socio-economic projections at a country level are rare.
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