Andrew Orr
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About
Research Area
My research area and interests are the physical and dynamical processes responsible for climate change and variability in polar and high-mountain regions, especially the Antarctic, Alps and Himalayas. I use regional and global climate models for my research, and most recently machine-learning methods. I use my research to understand high-impact inter-disciplinary globally-important problems, such as how the Earth’s climate system is causing i) changes to the hydroclimate of the Alps and Himalayan regions resulting in shrinkage of its glaciers and snowpack, which presents a formidable water-resource problem, ii) how interactions between the atmosphere and cryosphere in the Antarctic are causing increased ice loss from its ice sheets, which is contributing to sea-level rise, and iii) extreme weather events in the Antarctic, Alps, and Himalayan regions, which despite being high impact are poorly understood. I like to work collaboratively, and especially with other international regional climate modelling groups, which allows for the sharing of data and coordination of science.
Project Interests
I have a broad range of interests related to climate change and variability and process-based understanding in polar and high-mountain regions and would be interested in co-developing a wide variety of projects around this. Methods could involve using atmospheric models, observations, and machine-learning. One interesting idea would be to use satellite imagery and high-resolution atmospheric model simulations to investigate the vulnerability of Antarctic ice shelves to surface melting induced by extreme weather events, which can increase the likelihood of their collapse. Another idea could be using data from the recent international TEAMx observational campaign to look at key atmospheric processes over the Alps.