The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is an independent intergovernmental organisation supported by most of the nations of Europe. It is based at three sites: Shinfield Park, Reading, United Kingdom; Bologna, Italy; and Bonn, Germany. It operates one of the largest supercomputer complexes in Europe and the world's largest archive of numerical weather prediction data.
A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions. A drought can last for days, months or years. Drought often has large impacts on the ecosystems and agriculture of affected regions, and causes harm to the local economy. Annual dry seasons in the tropics significantly increase the chances of a drought developing and subsequent wildfires. Periods of heat can significantly worsen drought conditions by hastening evaporation of water vapour, drying out forests and other vegetation and increasing fuel for wildfires.
The Meteorological Office, abbreviated as the Met Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and is led by CEO Penelope Endersby, who took on the role as Chief Executive in December 2018 and is the first woman to do so. The Met Office makes meteorological predictions across all timescales from weather forecasts to climate change.
The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) is a centre for excellence in environmental science across water, land and air. The organisation has a long history of investigating, monitoring and modelling environmental change. Research topics include: air pollution, biodiversity, chemical risks in the environment, extreme weather events, droughts, floods, greenhouse gas emissions, soil health, sustainable agriculture, sustainable ecosystems, water quality, and water resources management.
The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), also known as the Indian Niño, is an irregular oscillation of sea surface temperatures in which the western Indian Ocean becomes alternately warmer and then colder than the eastern part of the ocean.
The European Flood Awareness System is a European Commission initiative to increase preparedness for riverine floods across Europe.
The quantitative precipitation forecast is the expected amount of melted precipitation accumulated over a specified time period over a specified area. A QPF will be created when precipitation amounts reaching a minimum threshold are expected during the forecast's valid period. Valid periods of precipitation forecasts are normally synoptic hours such as 00:00, 06:00, 12:00 and 18:00 GMT. Terrain is considered in QPFs by use of topography or based upon climatological precipitation patterns from observations with fine detail. Starting in the mid-to-late 1990s, QPFs were used within hydrologic forecast models to simulate impact to rivers throughout the United States. Forecast models show significant sensitivity to humidity levels within the planetary boundary layer, or in the lowest levels of the atmosphere, which decreases with height. QPF can be generated on a quantitative, forecasting amounts, or a qualitative, forecasting the probability of a specific amount, basis. Radar imagery forecasting techniques show higher skill than model forecasts within 6 to 7 hours of the time of the radar image. The forecasts can be verified through use of rain gauge measurements, weather radar estimates, or a combination of both. Various skill scores can be determined to measure the value of the rainfall forecast.
The Centre for Polar Observation & Modelling (CPOM) is a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Centre of Excellence that studies processes in the Earth's polar environments. CPOM conducts research on sea ice, land ice, and ice sheets using satellite observations and numerical models.
Julia Mary Slingo is a British meteorologist and climate scientist. She was Chief Scientist at the Met Office from 2009 until 2016. She is also a visiting professor in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, where she held, prior to appointment to the Met Office, the positions of Director of Climate Research in the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) National Centre for Atmospheric Science and founding director of the Walker Institute for Climate System Research.
Rachel Ann Mills is a Professor of Ocean Chemistry at the University of Southampton. She is a deep-sea oceanographer who works on the chemistry of the seafloor and its impact on life in the sea. She has led research expeditions using submersibles and remotely operated vehicles to remote and deep, unexplored parts of the ocean.
Katharine Anne Giles was a British climate scientist. Her research considered sea ice cover, ocean circulation and wind patterns. She was a passionate science communicator, and since 2015, the Association of British Science Writers has held a science communication award in her honour.
Hayley J. Fowler is a Professor of Climate Change Impacts in the School of Engineering at Newcastle University.
Elizabeth Mary Shaw was a British hydrologist and author of the popular textbook Hydrology in Practice.
Louise Heathwaite is a British environmental scientist. She is Distinguished Professor in the Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Research and Enterprise. She is a hydrochemist working on diffuse environmental pollution, especially the pathways of nitrogen and phosphorus loss from agricultural land to water.
Tamara Susan Galloway is a British marine scientist and Professor of Ecotoxicology at the University of Exeter. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2019 Birthday Honours.
Efi Foufoula-Georgiou is a Distinguished Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at the University of California, Irvine. She is well known for her research on the applications of wavelet analysis in the fields of hydrology and geophysics and her many contributions to academic journals and national committees.
Antje Weisheimer is a German climate scientist researching at the University of Oxford, UK, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading, UK.
Giuliano Di Baldassarre is a Professor of Hydrology at Uppsala University and the Director of the Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science, Sweden. He was awarded the American Geophysical Union Whiterspoon Lecture in 2020 and the European Geosciences Union Plinius Medal in 2021.
Richard Washington is a South African climate scientist and meteorologist. He is Professor of Climate Science at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford, as well as being the Director of the Radcliffe Meteorological Station, which has the longest single-site weather records in the United Kingdom. He is a fellow of Keble College, Oxford.
Emily Black is a British environmental scientist. As of June 2022, she is Professor of Meteorology at the University of Reading and a senior research fellow in National Centre for Atmospheric Science (Climate).
