Defence adaptation

How defence adapts in response to climate change.

Global heating and related climate changes are already happening. They would continue even if greenhouse gas emissions ended today. We cannot predict the speed of these changes, so we must ensure operational capability remains effective. Defence must also keep (or increase) operational advantage and freedom of manoeuvre. Defence must adapt.

If we understand defence’s current level of resilience to climate change, we can develop the right adaptations.

The people and equipment that make up defence capability must prepare to fight and win in all climatic zones. And in extreme weather conditions too - against rivals more familiar with operating in the local area.

3 ways climate change will affect defence

Change in threat:

• changes in global and regional freedom of access and manoeuvre

• change in national and international acceptance of defence’s impact on climate change

Change in mission demand:

• increase in need for Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) and Military Aid to the Civil Authority (MACA)

• physical or geopolitical changes may require operations in new environments

• increase in need for peacekeeping operations

Change in operating conditions:

• ability to switch rapidly between increasing climatic extremes

• ability to operate in prolonged extreme weather and temperature events

• increase in risk of degradation of equipment and personnel

Ensure equipment is optimised for climate changed world

Issues

Climate change has a wide range of impacts on military equipment.

Extreme weather (such as high winds) can:

• affect aircraft (especially at take-off or landing)

• cause damage to communications and infrastructure for storing equipment

• cause sea and river erosion affecting navigation above and below water

Increased temperatures can:

• affect aircraft performance (by reducing lift, lowering load limits, reducing range and increasing fuel usage)

• put stress on land vehicles and equipment (can increase the need for cooling of equipment and vehicles)

• melt sea ice causing marine engines to be damaged from ingesting melting ice pack

• degrade maritime navigation and Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR)

• limit marine engine performance

• increase degradation of most materials and equipment which increases support demand due to higher failure rates in equipment requiring maintenance (increased temperature and extreme weather can do this)

Dust and sand storms from desertification can:

• compromise vision in air and land vehicles

• damage land and air vehicle engines and equipment (increasing maintenance burden, and affect equipment operations including optical sensors, lasers, EHF, radio and communications)

Increased salinity (salt content of water) can also affect submarine and counter submarine operations by affecting acoustic transmissions.

If we increase the need for HADR and MACA operations - as these are not the operations driving capability development, they cannot shape procurement - this can result in the use of capabilities not optimised for these missions. And while military equipment and personnel are engaged in HADR and MACA, they’re not available for their primary tasks of warfighting and deterrence.

Solutions

In a world where harsher climates and extreme temperatures are universal, we must adapt equipment so it operates anywhere. And across an increasing range of operational conditions too.

The UK does already operate in extreme temperatures. Rather than having assets to specialise in specific climatic zones though, future equipment must be flexible enough to switch between cold and heat (with little time to adapt or acclimatise).

Platform or vehicle options:

• new capabilities (such as icebreakers) to navigate passage in the high north

• retrofit or enhance current capabilities

• more temperature tolerant equipment (including greater cooling power for hotter environments)

• electrified maritime and air platform fleets with associated large-scale recharging facilities

Military equipment options (needs to be flexible to ensure rapid adaptation between different climate extremes and could employ the following):

• open architectures to take advantage of rapid advances in technology or changes in environment

• modular system of systems to tailor equipment for missions

• operating and computing ‘at the edge’ where there’s a limited amount of front-end process and decision-making to overcome loss of connectivity from extreme weather

• increased use of robotic and autonomous systems to reduce the risk to personnel from hazardous weather and extreme temperature

Maintenance and storage options (there are a number of ways to reduce the time equipment is out of service from climate effects):

• predictive and conditions-based maintenance to reduce failures including artificial intelligence (AI) and digital twin technology

• forward spares production and repair using advanced manufacturing technology

• making repairs simpler and training people with the skills needed

• focus on robustness to extreme weather and temperature during acquisition of equipment and consumables

• climate-proof storage to extend life and limit damage from temperature, moisture, light and dust

Spotlight on digital twins

A digital twin is a virtual model of a real world entity, system or process used to predict performance. It includes a live 2-way data flow into and out of its twin in the physical world. Digital twins mimic (in real-time) their real world counterpart in all aspects. And they can be used to experiment and iterate potential interventions to understand their likely impact.

Digital twins can:

• predict and reduce energy use, emissions and waste

• extend object or system life

• increase performance, sustainability and circularity

Alternatively, they can model how unchanged capabilities, organisations or systems will cope in a climate changed world.

Explore, test, exercise and evaluate capability and approaches for climate changed world

Explore concepts in climate changed world

Understand potential concepts to combat climate change effects.

Test and evaluate impact of climate change on current and future capability and approaches

Test facilities for both physical and digital or synthetic capabilities. Test across a full range of climate scenarios.

Exercise force planning and capability options in climate realistic scenarios

Physical exercises, wargames and virtual exercise to test force structure, capability mix and force planning.

Ensuring resilient infrastructure

Issue

Climate change will impact both fixed, deployed and UK national infrastructure which defence relies on.

In the interim, UK based defence infrastructure will face local extremes of temperature and weather. These will be less extreme than those faced in the overseas territories and on deployment, but the local extremes and associated risks (such as flooding) can still cause disruption.

Climate change effects on infrastructure could influence the following:

• basing

• headquarters

• warehousing

• transportation hubs

• training grounds

• testing facilities

• energy provision including from national infrastructure

• IT

• communications

• materials production or extraction (both through direct damage and loss of access)

Solution

To avoid the impact of extreme weather events, we should do both of the following:

• move current infrastructure, such as relocating coastal installations due to potential sea rises

• plan climate change into the choice of site and engineering specifications for future developments

This is not always practicable, and so there are other ways to achieve greater resilience of infrastructure:

• structural adaptation: make the structure itself more resilient, through engineered or natural approaches

• non-structural adaptation: such as early warning systems or increased monitoring

• dispersion: ensure assets are not all based in one location

• ease of repair: where it’s not possible or economically viable to protect the asset from climate change impacts

• redundancy: balance between keeping only the necessary infrastructure whilst retaining flexibility to respond to changing needs

Ensure the health and wellbeing of defence people

Issue

Defence people (and our working animals) will operate in a broader range of temperatures and more extreme weather. This will have implications on their health and wellbeing and their ability to train and work effectively.

Extreme temperatures

People will be required to train and operate in extreme temperatures more often. This will affect their productivity, increasing the risk of heat or cold stress and jeopardising operational effectiveness.

Monitoring of personnel to ensure they don’t suffer from heat or cold stress is important. Heat stress becomes an even greater issue when wearing protective equipment (such as Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear suits and explosive ordinance disposal suits) or operating in already hot or confined environments.

How to reduce the impact of extreme temperature on personnel:

• acclimatisation: support training or operations in extreme temperatures or conditions

• human augmentation: reduce both physical and cognitive burden (for example, exoskeletons)

• personal protective equipment: for example, cooling vests, sun cream, thermal clothing

• ways of working: reduce time working in extreme temperatures conditions and reduce number of people exposed

• hydration: increase and regular hydration for extreme heat (potential solutions to tackle water shortage include technologies such as portable desalination, water harvesting and water purification)

• air conditioning: increase use of air conditioning or heating in accommodation (accepting this comes with an associated increase in power burden)

Increase in diseases

Warmer temperatures boost the transmission and survivability of disease, and so we could see the following happen:

• the movement of disease vectors (such as insects with warming temperatures and an increase in water borne diseases from contaminated flood water) will lead to an increase in prevalence and diseases being seen in new areas
• the likelihood of deployed forces being exposed to disease in more places may increase
• the medical capability will need to deal with the changing risk from disease

Increase in air pollutants

Desertification and drier conditions lead to increased air pollution and more cases of respiratory illness. This affects people’s ability to work and increases the need for respiratory protection and treatment of respiratory diseases.

Monitoring

Spotting signs of ill-health early on will reduce the risk to military people. Wearables that record all aspects of a person’s physiology (in order to understand how a person is performing and when problems arise) may provide opportunities for early intervention.

Access

Climatic effects on the physical environment (as well as political or legal constraints) could affect moving equipment, resources and personnel. This will affect the freedom of movement of our deployed forces, and also the ability to resupply. We can plan for one-off or predictable physical events, but as unpredictable events increase, this will affect operations.

Other things to consider:

• extreme weather impacting runways and roads (for example, objects blowing on to them and snow and ice storms or extreme temperatures melting their surfaces)

• terrestrial access restricted by areas subject to flooding and wild fires

• rising sea levels could affect port access and a ship’s ability to dock

• political or legal constraints can cause reduced permissiveness of access - nations may choose to limit the UK’s ability to deploy if by so doing, the UK would be adding further stress to the local community (for instance, if a deployed force depends on regional local support in conditions of scarcity, local communities may contest the use of local resources, increasing the risk of conflict)

• countries may refuse access (for instance, if UK forces are not meeting environmental sustainability criteria)

• climate change disruption to supply chains can happen because of damage to access routes which affects defence’s ability to acquire capability - conflicts driven or prolonged by climate change may impact supply chains and costs (this increases the length and scope of disruption)

• the melting Arctic will expose new shipping routes on a seasonal then permanent basis (which opens up new trade routes providing new economic opportunities), possibly increasing competition for resources and conflict between Arctic nations - the Antarctic melting ice could open up competition for fossil fuel deposits, mineral deposits and fisheries