• Associate Fellow, Climatic Research Unit, UEA: from 26/09/22
• Senior Research Fellow, Climatic Research Unit, UEA: retired 25/09/22.
• From 2004 (30% of full-time appointment): Research and administration manager, Climatic Research Unit, UEA.
• From 1987 (70% of full-time since 2004): Senior Research Associate, Climatic Research Unit, UEA.
• 1982 - 1987: Research Associate, Climatic Research Unit, UEA. 

I joined the Climatic Research Unit in 1982, where I was a Senior Research Fellow as well as the Unit’s Research and Administration Manager until retiring in September 2022. I now have an informal position as CRU Associate Fellow.

My research interests focus on the development and use of regional climate change projections, particularly with respect to extreme events and the representation of uncertainty. Thus I work at the interface between climate modellers and users of climate information – where communication, particularly with decision makers and policy makers (as well as researchers modelling the impacts of climate change), is increasingly important. I also have a longstanding interest in Mediterranean climate.

My earlier practical experience of investigating past climate change and variability and links with atmospheric circulation, as well as statistical downscaling from the coarser global climate model scale to the higher spatial scales relevant for users, provided a valuable context for many of my research projects and activities.  These focus on the use of regional climate information in impacts, adaptation and vulnerability assessments for a number of different sectors including health (e.g., work for the World Health Organisation), agriculture, tourism, renewable energy, and the built environment and infrastructure.  I have co-ordinated and worked on many major UK and European climate change projects, together with projects focused on South America and the Caribbean.

Having worked on climate change scenarios and with users of these scenarios over a couple of decades, I was well placed to play a leading role in the development of climate services, for example through the Global Framework for Climate Services.  I was a Co-Chair of the World Climate Research Programme's Working Group on Regional Climate whose responsibilities included overseeing the CORDEX international initiative on regional downscaling.  I was a lead author for the IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX - published in 2012) and a contributing author for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report from Working Group 1 (Chapter 9 on model evaluation).  

My most recent projects focus on the development of climate services for the renewable energy sector and on the development of climate and health country profiles for the World Health Organisation, as well as collaborative work on sustainable and healthy cities.

Some of my research is highlighted in this UEA Infographic.

Amongst many other UK activities, I have contributed to assessments of the impacts of climate change on UK health (for the Department of Health) and the insurance industry (for the Chartered Insurance Institute).  My main UK research activities in the past involve providing climate information and projections for use in impacts and adaptation studies on the built environment and infrastructure.  I was involved in development of a climate scenario generator for urban areas in the EPSRC ARCADIA project (Adaptation and Resilience in Cities: Analysis and Decision making using Integrated Assessment).  I was a member of the UKCP09 steering group and one of five international reviewers of these national probabilistic climate projections.

At the European level, I was the coordinator of work on the production of probabilistic regional climate projections in the ENSEMBLES FP6 integrated project (having previously co-ordinated the FP5 STARDEX project on statistical downscaling).  I was the co-ordinator of integrating (indicator-based) case-studies within the CIRCE FP6 project on impacts of climate change in the Mediterranean which ended in June 2011.  I was an external advisor on the PESETA and PESETA 2 projects and a partner in the larger follow-on ClimateCost FP7 project on estimating the full costs of European climate change, together with the newly launched ECONADAPT FP7 project on Economics of climate change adaptation in Europe. 

My main role within all these projects (and the more recent PESETA 3 project) related to the provision of relevant and robust climate observations and projections, and helping users to understand their limitations and to use them effectively and appropriately.  I was also involved in the FP7 CLIM-RUN project on Climate Local Information in the Mediterranean region: Responding to User Needs.  My role in CLIM-RUN was the co-ordination of bottom-up case studies on identifying and meeting the user requirements for climate services.  Within the FP7 CLARIS-LPB project, I co-ordinated work on the linkages between climate modeling and impacts assessments for La Plata Basin in South America.  Another FP7 project which developed new ground, in this case through an interdisciplinary approach to the study of climate change and allergic disease, is Atopica.  I was also involved in the CDKN-funded CARIWIG project which developed climate projection tools (including a modified version of the UKCP09 weather generator) for the Caribbean region.  As in a number of other projects, my role within CARIWIG focused on the identification and translation of user needs into regional climate information products.

More recently, I coordinated development of a Demonstrator providing access to climate and energy data developed in collaboration with potential users. This pre-operational climate service - European Climatic Energy Mixes (ECEM) - was funded by the C3S programme. I was also involved in the follow-up C3S Energy project which moved closer towards an operational service. I was also involved in the Horizon 2020 SECLI-FIRM project on The Added Value of Seasonal Climate Forecasts for Integrated Risk Management Decisions which focused on decision making in the energy and water sectors.

I am also involved in ongoing work for the World Health Organisation on the development of climate and health country profiles. The most recent focus was on the development of profiles for small island developing states (particularly in the Caribbean and Pacific). For the Wellcome Trust funded CUSSH project on 'Complex Urban Systems for Sustainability and Health' I provided climate information, including information about the urban heat island, to the interdisciplinary team focusing on six cities in Europe, Kenya and China.

Publications: EPrints Digital Repository

• Former CRU Research and Administration Manager
• Former member of the School of Environmental Sciences Equality and Diversity Committee

Climate services; Climate change scenarios and changes in extreme weather events; climate change in the Mediterranean and Caribbean.