The historic properties that we care for by their very nature have been around a long time.
They have seen a lot of environmental change over the years. Some of them are hundreds of years old, others are thousands of years old – so they are survivors.
But what we’re witnessing now is an acceleration in the rate of change and that’s what climate change brings to us and presents us with a particular challenge.
The broad changes that we are experiencing and that we are going to experience over the next few decades is a shift to warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers.
Since the 1960s we have seen a series of parts of Scotland’s climate and weather systems changing quite dramatically.
We have got increased rainfall – twenty percent more rain than we used to have…
... our sea levels are rising, our temperatures are on average a degree higher than they were fifty years ago and we have got longer growing seasons of about five weeks, less frost, less snow.
The historic environment is the remains of the past all around us.
It’s something that we interact with every day and sometimes we don’t even know we’re doing so.
It’s the buildings that we work in, that we live in and it gives our towns and cities a really important sense of identity.
It’s not just the castles and the stately homes and so on, it’s also the historic buildings that we live in - the tenements, the Victorian villas – so not just the fancy stuff.
The historic environment is a precious resource. We only get one shot at it, if we lose it - it’s gone.
Many of the properties that we care for are located in places that are highly exposed and vulnerable to extreme weather events, coastal erosion, flooding and other impacts.
Essentially they are in the frontline when it comes to climate change.
There are many different impacts from climate change.
There are large-scale impacts such as flooding and then there are the micro-scale or the smaller-scale impacts such as the deterioration of stonework.
At Dunkeld Cathedral we’ve been looking at the effects of climate change on the sandstone used in the cathedral...
... to look at possible replacement sandstone to be used that is more resistant to the effects of moisture movement through the stone.
The research that we are doing here at Dunkeld Cathedral with our partners British Geological Survey...
... is giving us a much better understanding of the way that stonemasonry behaves, particularly in the light of climate change and increased rainfall.
We are really looking at the micro-scale of the effects of climate change on the long-term durability of the stone at Dunkeld.
Sometimes the micro-scale or the smaller-scale processes are in fact the most damaging...
... you don’t see them happening like you do flooding, but they are happening and climate change is accelerating the rate at which they happen.
The work that we’ve done to date and in particular the partnership work, the knowledge sharing and the expertise that is developing...
... is allowing us to understand better how climate change is going to impact on our properties. That allows us to manage those properties better going into the future.
We have done a lot of work and research already into understanding the impacts of climate change on the historic environment...
... but a really important part of our job is to share that knowledge with others to help them play their role in safeguarding our historic environment for the future.
We are at the juncture between the past and the future.
This work that we are doing now is going to ensure that the historic environment actually has a future.