Laura Baker's homepage

I am a research scientist in the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), based in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading. My main research interests include sub-seasonal to decadal forecasting for the UK and Europe; evaluating risk of extreme weather events in the UK; and predictability in the North Atlantic and Europe region. My earlier research experience has included modelling climate and air quality impacts of anthropogenic emissions; studying extratropical cyclone dynamics; and working in the development of high-resolution ensemble forecast systems.

Current research projects:

SF-NARMAX: Northwest European Seasonal Weather Prediction from Complex Systems Modelling. Aims to improve Northwest European regional seasonal weather prediction through the development of innovative probabilistic statistical forecasts of the state of the North Atlantic jet stream and by comparison of these forecasts with those produced using dynamical seasonal forecasting models. Funded by NERC.

VegCast: Aims to develop a state-of-the-art crop forecasting model that will provide growers with predictions of the timing of harvest and yield estimates for their broccoli crops. Funded by Ceres Agri-Tech.

UK Centre for Greening Finance and Invenstment. Aims to accelerate the adoption and use of climate and environmental data and analytics by financial institutions internationally. Funded by UKRI.

Previous research projects:

IMPETUS (Improving Predictions of Drought for User Decision-Making). Part of the NERC UK Droughts and Water Scarcity programme. My particular role in the project was to evaluate and improve the skill of seasonal-to-decadal forecasts of UK drought.

ECLIPSE: This project aimed to assess emission reduction strategies for short-lived climate forcers and evaluate their effects on climate change and air quality.

DIAMET. My work focussed on investigating sources of forecast error in high-resolution forecasts. In particular I developed and evaluated a method of representing model error in a convective-scale ensemble system.

I completed my PhD in 2011, also at Reading University, supervised by Suzanne Gray and Peter Clark (Met Office). My project, working with my two supervisors and Oscar Martinez-Alvarado, was looking at sting jets in severe northern-European windstorms.