Mathew Owens: Personal webpage

I am a Professor of Space Physics in the Department of Meteorology. I am currently the Programme Director for the new Environmental Physics BSc.

Links to a publication list, CV and research interests can be found in the left-hand panel.

Recent news

• Jan 2017: The Guardian has done an excellent job of debunking the recent Little Ice Age stories, with reference to recent Reading work.
• Dec 2017: Commentary on my recent solar wind forecasting work from The American Geophysical Union's EOS and the Space Weather journal.
• Dec 2017: My article on the correspondence between the Little Ice Age and the Maunder minimum is Open Access here.
• Nov 2017: Interested in doing a PhD in space weather? Apply here.
• Jun 2017: My article on the coherence of CMEs has been published. IFLScience provided a good write up.
• Feb 2017: Kim Tucker-Hood, my PhD student co-supervised with Prof. Chris Scott, has passed her viva, subject to minor thesis corrections. Huge congratulations to Kim!
• Jan 2017: My article on reconstructing the solar wind over the last four centuries has been published. There's a nice write up on IFLScience.
• Jun 2016: The Guardian have a nice summary of my recent work on thunder day observations.
• Mar 2016: I'm now an Associate Editor for Solar Physics, specialising in heliospheric science.
• Mar 2016: My former PhD student, Simon Thomas, has won the Department of Meteorology's Ian James thesis prize. Read it here.
• Jan 2016: The American Geophysical Union have a EOS spotlight article on my recent solar wind-lightning research

  Research Interests:

  • The heliospheric magnetic field
  • The source of the slow solar wind
  • Empirical and numerical space-weather forecasting
  • Reconstructions of long-term solar variability
  More information can be found here. A list of publications is available here.

  Research Projects:

  • Space Weather Impact on Ground-based Systems (NERC funded)
  • Driving Space Weather forecasts with real data (NERC funded): Can determining background solar wind conditions by using data from the NASA STEREO spacecraft improve the accuracy of space weather forecast models?
  • The heliosphere and space weather under space-climate change (STFC funded)
  • Geomagnetic, sunspot and cosmogenic nuclide reconstructions of the solar magnetic field (Leverhulme funded)

  Postdoctoral & graduate student supervision

  • Dr Luke Barnard Working on solar wind model initiation using heliospheric imager data and space climate reconstructions.
  • Sarah Bentley Working on solar wind driving of magnetospheric wave power and its effects on the radiation belts. Co-supervised with Dr Clare Watt.