Science and Engineering at The University of Edinburgh |
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- Simon Tett
I am the Chair of Earth System Dynamics and Modelling. This role also makes me head of the Centre for Earth System Dynamics which is part of SAGES.
I can be found in room 351, Grant Institute, Kings Buildings. I joined the University in July 2007 and before then I worked for the Met Office's Hadley Centre. I joined the Hadley Centre in 1991 where I worked on mechanisms of Climate Variability and the detection and attribution of climate change. In 2001 I got promoted to manage a team of scientists who researched observed climate change. I improved their information technology so that the systems used for near-real-time climate monitoring were more robust. I also focused the team on producing error estimates. On the side I attempted to model the climate of the last 500 years and found that early CO2 emissions may have had a significant effect on tropical temperatures by the early 19th century.
CV
I am the Chair of Earth System dynamics and modelling at the University of Edinburgh where I also, in 1992, received my PhD. I previously worked at the Hadley Centre as a research scientist where I, with others, showed that human emissions of carbon dioxide were likely to be responsible for 20th century warming. After this I managed a team of scientists who created datasets of historical climate change from the atmosphere, sea and land surface and the sub-surface ocean with comprehensive uncertainty estimates. I also carried out and analysed simulations of the climate of the last 500 years. I have published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers, won the Norber-Gerbier WMO prize twice (1997, 1998), a NOAA prize for best scientific paper (1998), the L G Groves prize for Meteorology (2006) and gave the Margary lecture to the Royal Meteorological Society in 2007. I contributed to the last three IPCC assessments, provided scientific advice to the UK government, am a member of NERC's peer review college and a National Centre for Atmospheric Science and National Centre for Earth Observation Principal Investigator. I am also a Chartered Meteorologist.Research Interests
My research interests are very broad ranging from methods to reconstruct past climate from proxy records, such as tree rings, and instrumental data, through to modelling future climate. At the heart of my research is the quantitative analysis of models and observations of climate change in order to constrain the future. I'm also interested in extreme climate events and their causes. In coming to Edinburgh I'd like to improve my knowledge and understanding of the carbon cycle and try and develop ways of constraining its possible futures. I'd also like to improve estimates of the natural variability of the earth system and device ways of ruling out strong climate feedbacks from observations. This all seems to fit into NERC's Climate System Strategy.Teaching Interests
My current ideas are that we need to teach modelling and model analysis. That also means that we need to teach some software engineering.I've given guest MSc lectures. I've made PDF handouts of lectures I gave to "Global Environmental Change" Lecture 1 and Lecture 2.
I've a rather long lecture (meant to be delivered) in two slots for an Informatics MSc -- Nigel Goddard give that course.
Other
I like to have a cup of tea around 3.30, and when not too fat, a biscuit. If you have something interesting to discuss with me related to climate (or anything else) you are welcome to join me!Recent Talks
Here is some of my more recent talks and presentations.
- Presentation to Cairn Energy on Climate Change . This talk attempts to convince them that CO2 has changed due to human activites, that climate has changed and that people are responsible for that. It then concludes with some work from Myles Allen showing that there is about 1/2 Tg of Carbon that can be emitted to avoid 2K warming. On the way it also describes how climate models work!
- Presentation to Colleagues on Causes of European Climate change . This talk looks at observed changes in rainfall and temperature and shows it is likely that changes in European climate are caused by human drivers.
- Presentation to Climate Change Business Delivery Group on observing and modelling climate change. The audience was a group of business leaders. The aim of the talk was to give them a whistle stop tour of observations, modelling, attribution of climate change and future projections.
- Lecture given to informatics MSc students on modelling climate change. The aim of the talk was to give them some appreciation of the methods used in climate modelling. A slightly modified version of this talk was given to Engineering in the University of Edinburgh. It includes some more material on parametrisation.
- Inaugural Lecture given 17/3/08. A fairly general lecture entitled "Climate Change: Observing and Simulating the Past; Predicting the Future"
- 10 Minute talk at Scottish Museum given 10/4/08. A very general and short talk on observations and modelling of climate given to a public climate change event at the Scottish Museum.
- Talk to the Scottish branch of the Royal Met. Soc. Given 9/1/2009. An extended version of the Margary lecture I gave in October 2007.
- A talk on the relationship between energy and precipitation given to a small group within the School.