Met Office Joint-Chair at Leeds: Prof John Marsham

I am the Met Office Joint-Chair at the University of Leeds, responsible for leading the Met Office Academic Partnership at Leeds and the University of Leeds Met Office Strategic (LUMOS) Research Group.

I am based in the Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science (ICAS), in the School of Earth and Environment (SEE) at the University of Leeds.

Email: J.Marsham then @ leeds.ac.uk, Tel: +44 (0)113 343 6422, Fax: +44 (0)113 343 5259. Please also see my SEE homepage

Research Interests

I work largely, but not exclsuively, on the tropics, particularly Africa and Asia. My research is focused on atmospheric convection and its role in weather, climate and the earth-system (particularly dust uplift). I was awarded the Royal Meteorological Society's L F Richardson prize in 2009 and the European Meteorological Society's Young Scientist Award in 2010. I am a member of the Priestley International Centre for climate and Water@Leeds.

My publication list is available (via Google Scholar).

Research Group

EUREC4A
Leo Saffin (co-supervised PDRA)

HyCRISTAL
Declan Finney (PDRA)

GCRF Africa SWIFT
Alex Roberts (PDRA)

VERA
Julia Crook (co-supervised PDRA)

IMPALA
Lawrence Jackson (co-supervised PDRA)

GENESIS, GENESIS2 and EUREC4A
Leif Denby (co-supervised PDRA)

LAPSE
Jessica Baker (co-supervised PDRA)

Terra Maris
Simon Peatman (co-supervised PDRA)

PhDs
Megan Bickle (Fluids CDT, Wind-shear and deep moist convection)

Claire West (Fluids CDT)

Co-supervised PhDs
Geoffrey Bessardon (DACCIWA)
Dean Walker Open CASE with Met Office, Seasonal predictions of rainfall in East Africa
Laura Kiely, Interactions and feedbacks between deforestation, fire and rainfall over Borneo
Claire Bartholomew, Machine learning for meteorological nowcasting (co-supervised Met Offfice PhD)
Michael Baidu, , Gulf of Guinea moist convection (co-supervised)

Past PhDs
Bethany Woodhams Severe rainfall in East Africa, co-supervised
Sam Williams Downdraughts from moist convection, co-supervised
Miroslav Provod (Convective storms in the summertime Sahel)
Mansi Bhowmick, Land-atmosphere interaction in the Indian monsoon, co-supervised
Rory Fitzpatrick, Open CASE with Met Office on West African monsoon onset, co-supervised
Alex Roberts, Desert Storms, co-supervised
Sophie Cowie, Desert Storms,co-supervised
Qian Huang, Visiting student, co-supervised
Bethan White, The Convective Storm Initiation Project, co-supervised

Funded Research Projects

Ongoing projects:
Elucidating the role of clouds-circulation coupling in climate (EUREC4A)
Seasonal Teleconnections to the Indian Monsoon: Understanding the Large-scale Atmospheric Tropical Environment (STIMULATE)
Assessing Forest Damage from Tropical Cyclones in Vietnam (AFORD), Co-I (HEFCE GCRF)
Enabling adaptation for vulnerable Indigenous peoples at the climate-health-food nexus, Co-I, (HEFCE GCRF)
The HyCristal Transport Pilot Project (HyTPP), PI (UK Aid from the UK Department for International Development (DFID), through the Corridors for Growth Trust Fund (C4G TF), administered by the World Bank).
GENESIS Dynamics and parametrisation of deep convective triggering, maintenance and updraughts, Co-I.(NERC ParaCon programme)
LAPSE Land-atmosphere interactions over Brazil and evaluating coupled climate models, Co-I.(Newton Fund Climate Science for Service Partnership Brazil)
The Future Climate for Africa HyCRISTAL consortium: Intergrating Hycro-Climate Science into Policy Decisions for Climate-Resilient Infrastructure and Livelihoods in East Africa (NERC/DfID), PI. HyCRISTAL blog
The Future Climate for Africa AMMA2050 consortium: African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis 2050, (NERC/DfID), Co-I
The Future Climate for Africa IMPALA consortium: Improving Model Processes for African Climate, (NERC/DfID), Co-I
DACCIWA consortium: Dynamics-aerosol-chemistry-cloud interactions in West Africa, (ERC), Leeds PI
INCOMPASS consortium: Interaction of Convective Organization and Monsoon Precipitation, Atmosphere, Surface and Sea (NERC-MoES), Co-I
SWAMMA: Sahara West African Monsoon Multiscale Analysis, (NERC), PI
VERA: Vegetation Effects on Rainfall in West Africa, (NERC), Co-I

Completed projects include:

Desert Storms - ERC, Bradley Jemmet-Smith (PDRA), Sophie Cowie (PDRA), Richard Pope (PDRA)
IFADS: Improving Forecasts of African Dust Storms for Oil and Gas Operations, TSB-funded project with Fugro-GEOS. Tomasz (Tomek) Trzeciak (PDRA)
AMMA II: African Monsoon Multidiscplinary Analysis II - NERC
DIAMET: DIAbatic influence on Mesoscale structures in ExTratropical storms - NERC
Fennec: The Saharan Climate System - NERC
SEAMSEW: A seamless approach to assessing model uncertainties in climate projections of severe European windstorms - Axa Insurance
AerosolCloud Interactions in the UK (ASCI-UK) - a Met Office partnership project
MWIS forecast verification - a NERC summer undergaraduate studentship (paper published)
Solar Cooking in the Sahel - an undergraduate summer studentship funded by the Leeds centre for Climate and geohazards (paper published)
The Convective Storm Initiation Project (CSIP): Further Analysis - NERC
GERB Intercomparison of Longwave and Shortwave radiation (GERBILS) - Met Office
SAMBBA consortium :The South AMerican Biomass Burning Analysis, (NERC), Co-I

Career summary

Jan 2015 - present: Associate Professor
Apr 2014 - present: I am part funded by the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS-Weather)
Feb 2013 - present: I am a water@leeds research fellow, working on atmospheric convection and precipitation.
Jan 2009 - Feb 2013: I worked on convection as part of the National Centre for Atmopsheric Science (Weather). I was awarded the L F Richardson prize by the Royal Meteorological Society and the Young Scientist Award by the European Meteorological Society in 2010.
July 2007 - Dec 2008: I worked on a NERC funded project analysing data from the Convective Storm Initiation Project (CSIP). I also took part in the GERB Intercomparison of Longwave and Shortwave radiation (GERBILS) project, studying dust uplift and transport in the Sahara.
July 2004 - June 2007: I was working with on the NERC funded consortium, the Convective Storm Initiation Project (CSIP).
April 2003 - June 2004: I worked on a NERC project analysing the effects of wind-shear on cirrus clouds.
October 2000 - February 2003: My PhD at Edinburgh University, ''Lake temperatures - thermal remote sensing and assimilation into a lake model'' (a copy of my thesis is available from my list of publications ).

Postgraduate Teaching

I used to teach an introductory IDL course for postgraduates. This was to some extent based on Hugh Pumphrey's (University of Edinburgh) IDL course. Notes are available (note icons at top left that step forward/back through these). Data used in the course are available (please note that is still work in progress).

Although these notes are a step-by-step introduction, I would also encourage people to look at the numerous examples in Andy Heap's (Centre for Global Atmospheric Modelling, The University of Reading) An Introduction to Using IDL in Meteorology. --- these notes contain some more sophisticated examples and also a good summary. There is also an online preview of IDL programming techniques available, as well as paper books (such as Practical IDL Programming by Liam Gumley). It's also worth looking at David Fanning's site , e.g. his slow-loops tutorial. If you do atmospheric science, Dominik Brunner's Basic IDL routines for atmospheric science are really useful. Once you think that you've really got IDL sorted you could always join the IEPA !

None of these notes really cover good and bad practise in scientific programming. For that you might want to consult Jason Lander's notes on How not to write a computer program.

Other Stuff

For pretty pictures of clouds (including clouds that look like things) see The Cloud Appreciation Society.

Weather forecasts: The Met office , Met Office forecasts, Met Office mountain forecasts, Met Office forecast charts, Met Office radar images, GFS forecasts, Meteoblue forecasts, ECMWF forecast charts, BBC forecasts and Meteox rain radar. Rain today, Uni Weather.

Contact information

Dr John Marsham,
Academic Research Fellow, Water@Leeds, National Centre for Atmospheric Science
Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science (ICAS),
School of Earth and Environment (SEE),
University of Leeds,
Leeds,
LS2 9JT
UK

Tel: +44 (0)113 343 6422,
Fax: +44 (0)113 343 5259
Email: J.Marsham then @ leeds.ac.uk
My SEE homepage

Updated by j.marsham@see.leeds.ac.uk .