Main tasks within ice2sea: Involvement in W4 and W6

Description of institution: The Met Office is the national meteorological service of the United Kingdom, offering a wide range of meteorological, climatological and environmental services to customers in government, commerce and industry. The focus for climatological research at the Met Office is the Hadley Centre for Climate Change which, since its creation in 1990, has established a world-class reputation for the quality of its studies on climate variability and the prediction and detection of anthropogenic climate change.

Department name:  Hadley Centre

Staff member:  Dr Jonathan Gregory

Profile of staff member: Jonathan Gregory joined the climate change group at the Met Office Hadley Centre soon after the Centre opened in 1990, following a PhD in particle physics and a year working at the Climatic Research Unit in Norwich. In 2003 he became a Met Office Fellow in climate change. Since 2003 he has also worked at the University of Reading, where he is a principal research scientist in the Walker Institute for Climate System Research and the climate programme of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, and has been a professor since 2006. He was joint coordinating lead author of the sea level chapter of the Third Assessment Report of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a lead author of the ocean observations and projections chapters of the Fourth Assessment Report, with responsibility for sea-level change. His recent interests include climate sensitivity and radiative forcing, changes in sea level, land ice response to future climate change, ocean heat uptake and changes in the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, and development of Hadley Centre climate models.

Selected references:

Bindoff, N. L., J. Willebrand, V. Artale, A. Cazenave, J. M. Gregory, S. Gulev, K. Hanawa, C. Le Quere, S. Levitus, Y. Nojiri, C. K. Shum, L. D. Talley and A. S. Unnikrishnan, 2007. Observations: Oceanic Climate Change and Sea Level. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Meehl, G. A., T. F. Stocker, W. D. Collins, P. Friedlingstein, A. T. Gaye, J. M. Gregory, A. Kitoh, R. Knutti, J. M. Murphy, A. Noda, S. C. B. Raper, I. G. Watterson, A. J. Weaver and Z. Zhao, 2007. Global Climate Projections. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Gregory, J. M. and P. Huybrechts, 2006. Ice-sheet contributions to future sea-level change. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London A, 364, 1709-1731.

Gregory, J. M., J. A. Lowe and S. B. T. Tett, 2006. Simulated global-mean sea-level changes over the last half-millennium. Journal of Climate, 19, 18, 4576-4591.

Lowe, J. A. and J. M. Gregory, 2006. Understanding projections of sea level rise in a Hadley Centre coupled climate model. J. Geophys. Res., 111, C11014. [doi:10.1029/2005JC003421].

Lowe, J. A., J. M. Gregory, J. Ridley, P. Huybrechts, R. J. Nicholls and M. Collins, 2006. The role of sea-level rise and the Greenland ice sheet in dangerous climate change: implications for the stabilisation of climate. In: Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change. Schellnhuber, J., W. Cramer, N. Nakicenovic, T. M. L. Wigley and G. Yohe (Eds) Cambridge University Press, 29-36

Ridley, J. K., P. Huybrechts, J. M. Gregory, J. A. Lowe, 2005. Elimination of the Greenland Ice Sheet in a High CO2 Climate. Journal of Climate, 18, 17, 3409-3427. [doi:10.1175/JCLI3482.1].

Gregory, J. M., P. Huybrechts and S. C. B. Raper, 2004. Threatened loss of the Greenland ice-sheet. Nature, 428, 6983, 616. [doi:10.1038/428616a].

Huybrechts, P., J. M. Gregory, I. Janssens, and M. Wild, 2004. Modelling Antarctic and Greenland volume changes during the 20th and 21st centuries forced by GCM time slice integrations. Global and Planetary Change, 42, 1-4, 83-105. [doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2003.11.011].

Toniazzo, T., J. M. Gregory and P. Huybrechts, 2004. Climatic impact of a Greenland deglaciation and its possible irreversibility. Journal of Climate, 17, 1, 21-33.

Other staff members:  Dr Jason Anthony Lowe, Climate Scientist/Manager (Meteorological Office Hadley Centre)

Profile of staff members: Dr Lowe has 15 years of experience working on climate change issues. Following completion of a PhD in climate physics, has been employed at the Meteorological Office Hadley Centre, first as a climate scientist working with Professor Jonathan Gregory and Professor John Mitchell, then in the role of scientist/manager. Continues to perform research and and also directs a team of researchers examining several aspects of climate change. Currently active in the following areas: mitigation issues, sea level rise, impacts modelling, land ice simulations, climate model experimental design, carbon cycle feedback, robustness of precipitation and temperature predictions, and climate projections of sea ice. Contributed to the third and fourth assessments by the IPCC.   In addition to setting the scientific direction of his team, Dr Lowe also project manages a major piece of work focused on delivering the climate science needed to inform decisions on protecting London from flooding, and a second project aimed at producing marine scenarios for UKCIP08. Plays a key role in the UK Meteorological Office contribution to RT2A of the EU ‘Ensembles’ project.

Selected references:

Huntingford, C and Lowe, J, (2007) “Overshoot” scenarios and climate change, Science 316 (5826): 829-829.

Ridley J, Lowe J, Brierley C and Harris G. (2007) Uncertainty in the sensitivity of Arctic sea ice to global warming in a perturbed parameter climate model ensemble. Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, L19704.

Mitchell, J F B, Lowe, J, Wood, R A and Vellinga, M. (2006) Extreme events due to human-induced climate change. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. (A), 364 (1845).

Lowe, J A and Gregory, J M. (2005) The effects of climate change on storm surges around the United Kingdom. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. (A), 363 (1831)

Lowe, J A, Gregory, J M and Flather, R A. (2001) Changes in the occurrence of storm surges around the United Kingdom under a future climate scenario using a dynamic storm surge model driven by the Hadley Centre climate models. Climate Dynamics 18 (3-4).