The hydrological cycle over polar regions
Research Area
I am a climate model developer and have worked on components of the HadGEM coupled climate models over many years. My current focus is adding water tracers and stable water isotopes to HadGEM3. Water tracers provide a powerful diagnostic tool for understanding the model’s complex hydrological cycle. For example, they can be used to track water evaporating from a particular area of the ocean, to where that water falls back to the surface as rain or snow. Stable water isotopes can be thought of as a particular type of water tracer which undergo additional processes. They are highly useful in a model as they can be compared to observations, and, therefore, can help to evaluate the model.
My research interests relate to using the water tracers in HadGEM3 to investigate the model’s hydrological cycle and how this is predicted to change in the future. My focus is on the polar regions, where changes in snowfall have implications for the surface mass balance of ice sheets and sea level rise.
My model development work requires collaboration with Met Office scientists. I am also involved in international projects (SWAIS-2C, SURFEIT, EU-P2F) which provides opportunities for collaboration with other modelling groups.
Project Interests
I would be interested in a project that utilised the water tracers in HadGEM3 to investigate the hydrological cycle over Antarctica, both for the present day and for future predictions. Aspects that could be investigated include:
- the amount of precipitation that is ‘recycled’ from sublimation from Antarctica itself rather than sourced directly from ocean evaporation
- the variability of precipitation sources over different timescales
- the impact of changing sea ice on precipitation sources