What I do

Research interests

• Climate variability: what are the mechanisms that affect regional-scale climate variability and how are they expected to change in the future ?
  Vidale et al. 2007, on future summer climate variability and controlling mechanisms.

  Hohenegger and Vidale 2005, on the impact of aerosols when simulating regional climate.

  Vidale et al. 2003, on current climate variability and feedback mechanisms.

• Heat waves: how are positive feedbacks between atmospheric circulation and the surface energy balance initiated and maintained ?
  Fischer et al. 2008, on controlling mechanisms for the 2003 European summer heat wave.

  Vidale et al. 2007, on summer climate variability and controlling mechanisms.

  Schaer et al. 2004, our Nature paper on the 2003 European summer heat wave.

• Climate and weather extremes: what are the weather and climate elements that we should target for impacts analysis ? How do they interact with the climate system ?
  Schwierz et al. 2010, on European winter wind storms, risks and losses.

  Frei et al. 2006, on precipitation extremes in future climate scenarios.

  Frei et al. 2003, on precipitation extremes in current climate at high-resolution.

  Answering these questions requires advanced observational and modelling capabilities:

• Development of high-resolution Global Climate Models: I am the PI for NERC's UJCC and HiGEM projects, developing the HiGEM and NUGEM models. I am also a PI in the NERC-Met Office Joint Weather and Climate Research Programme (JWCRP) and I collaborate within the Joint Weather and Climate Research Programme (JWCRP) with Malcolm Roberts (MO) on building the next high-resolution coupled climate model at high resolution, HadGEM3-H
  Slingo et al. 2009, on next-generation climate models.

  Shaffrey et al. 2009, on the development of the HiGEM high-resolution AOGCM.

  Roberts et al. 2008, on simulating Tropical Instability Waves in high-resolution AOGCMs.

• Monitoring of vegetation from space: can we detect vegetation dynamics and trends due to climate change from space ?
  Studer et al. 2007, European phenology and its validation from ground observations.

  Stockli and Vidale. 2003, on European phenology from space.

• Development of Land Surface Models: can we improve our understanding of how the exchanges of water and carbon by terrestrial ecosystems occur and how they are expected to change under elevated CO2 and climate change ? Can we also use this understanding to improve weather models ?
  Van den Hoof et al. 2010, on simulating crop growth with an enhanced land surface ecosystems model (JULES-SUCROS).

  Dharrsi et al. 2009, on land surface modelling developments from our collaborative work with the Met Office Data Assimilation group, which have resulted in significant improvements to the operational forecasts of 2m temperature and moisture in the MO global NWP model.

  Stockli et al. 2007, on simulating lateral soil water flow and river discharge over complex topography

  Vidale and Stockli 2005, on developing a new prognostic approach to canopy-level exchanges of CO2 and water

  Stockli and Vidale 2005, on simulating FLUXNET sites with a hierarchy of land surface models of increasing complexity

  Nicholls et al. 2004, on simulating multi-scale CO2 exchanges at multiple heights over a US forest.

  Denning et al.2003, on simulating the variability of CO2 and H2O concentrations and gradients over a US forest.

  Baker et al. 2003, on simulating CO2 and H20 exchanges over a US forest.

  Mihailovic et al. 2000, on intercomparing land surface models of different complexity

  Walko et al. 2000, on the development of the LEAF land surface model

• Land surface heterogeneity: how are the fluxes of heat, moisture, momentum and carbon organised by atmospheric circulation ? How do they affect the atmosphere and large-scale circulation ?
  Pielke et al., 1999, on historical landscape changes in Florida, 1900-1990.

  Taylor et al., 1998, on winter land surface heterogeneity and biosphere-atmosphere interactions during BOREAS.

  Vidale et al., 1997, on summer land surface heterogeneity and biosphere-atmosphere interactions during BOREAS.

  Pielke and Vidale, 1995, on the Boreal forest and the Polar Front.

Organisational responsibilities

• I am the NCAS Principal Investigator for high-resolution climate modelling (Joint Weather and Climate Research Programme (JWCRP), as well as HiGEM). I manage a large research group in this activity. Follow this link for further details.
• I develop and work with the JULES land surface model.
• I am the director, and one of the main lecturers, of the NCAS Climate Modelling Summer School, held bi-annually at Cambridge University.