Biography

Alison is a climate model developer and is adding water tracers, including stable water isotopes, to the UK Earth System Model (UKESM). Her current focus is developing the atmosphere and land components, in collaboration with the Met Office.

Water tracers are valuable diagnostic tools for understanding the hydrological cycle in a model.  For example, they can track water from where it evaporates at the surface, through the cloud and transport processes in the model, to where it eventually falls back to the surface as rain or snow.  Water isotopes are modelled by treating them as a special type of water tracer.  Simulations of water isotopes in climate models are especially useful for investigating conditions in past climates, as the modelled fields can be compared with measurements preserved in ice cores.

Alison joined BAS in 2021. Previously she worked at the Met Office, initially in the Polar Climate group (working on sea ice model development) before moving to the Ocean Forecasting group. Prior to this, she was a Senior Research Assistant at the University of Liverpool, which followed on from her PhD in Physical Oceanography at the same university.

Research interests

Collaborations