P.L. Vidale

Willis Professor of Climate System Science and Climate Hazards

Present Appointment:

Senior Scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, as Head of i) High-Resolution Climate Modelling group and of ii) Land Surface Processes group.
Willis Chair of Climate System Science and Climate Hazards at the University of Reading (UoR), in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences (Department of Meteorology).

I am a full Professor at the University of Reading and a Senior Scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS-Climate), leading and developing research on High-Resolution Global Climate Modelling and biosphere-atmosphere interactions.

In October 2010 I was appointed as the first holder of the "Willis Chair of Climate System Science and Climate Hazards", an endowed chair co-funded by Willis and NCAS, based at the Department of Meteorology. As part of this activity, I have launched the Weather and Climate Hazards Laboratory.

In 2008 I was awarded a "Personal Chair" of Climate System Science at the Department of Meteorology.

Research and Academic Interests

I am an expert in weather and climate modelling, with special focus on landsurface-atmosphere interactions at the local to regional scale. My research has led to major progress in several areas, in particular: understanding the natureand causes of summer heat waves; understanding the feedbacks between atmosphere, vegetation (photosynthesis) and soil moisture; monitoring ofvegetation growth and its variability from space; modelling of extreme weather and climate events, as well as quantifying their impacts (Tropical Cyclones,floods, droughts, wind storms).

Since 2007 I have also led the NERC High-Resolution Climate Modelling programme (previously UK-HiGEM and UK-Japan Climate Collaboration). More recently, I have become the NERC Principal Investigator for high-resolution climate modelling within the Joint Weather and Climate Research Programme, a partnership between the Met Office and NERC.

I have been the Director of the NCAS Climate Modelling Summer School, held bi-annually at Cambridge, since its first edition, in 2007. In 2012 I became the co-Director (with C.Reich, MPI, Germany) of the first E2SCMS Summer School, which was held in Kos, Greece, June 2012.

Previously, starting in late 2004, I was working at two locations: Reading and Yokohama.

NCAS-Climate (National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Climate Directorate, formerly called CGAM),located in the Department of Meteorology of the University of Reading, since October 2004.
Earth Simulator Center , located in Yokohama, Japan. I have led a team of UK scientists in the UK-Japan Climate Collaboration, porting and developing Hadley Centre GCMs on the Earth Simulator and building higher-resolution versions, for research in regional climate prediction, extremes etc. My collaboration with our Japanese colleagues revolves mostly around the simulation of Tropical Cyclones in high and ultra-high resolution GCMs.

For further details, refer to my publications, as well as the links I have provided below.