There are an increasing number of
gridded global (e.g., Leemans and Cramer, 1991; New et al., 1999) and
national (e.g., Kittel et al., 1995, 1997; Frei and Schär, 1998) climate data sets describing mean surface climate, although few describe inter-annual climate variability (
see Kittel et al., 1997; Xie and Arkin, 1997; New et al., 2000).
Both
National Grid and the government have expressed desire to
see smart, flexible technologies brought onto the
grid in an effort to deal with the growing presence of renewables in the UK's energy system.