Chapter 1: Climate Change

The earth’s climate is changing, partly from a continued natural warming since the last ice age and partly man made. The changing climate with its more extreme weather events is likely to impact bridges. This chapter considers the broad effects of climate change on the load effects, and load combinations applied to bridges. It discusses effects such as, temperature, fire, storminess, precipitation, snow, ice, wind, sea levels and acidity as they affect bridges. The highly localised impacts of many global climate effects are noted. The uncertainty of the data in probability and magnitude of extreme events on these climate effects is discussed. The chapter considers specific examples of where climate change may affect bridges. The work is primarily based on British and North European data, but data from other parts of the world are also considered. A risk assessment of the likelihood and impact of climate change is presented to quantify the effects on bridges and to support design or asset management decisions for individual structures or geographic groups of bridges. This chapter will assist bridge professionals in addressing the United Nations sustainability goal 13: Climate action.