The aim of this project is to understand better the impact of climate change on monsoon precipitation, whose variability has strong societal impacts.
Department: Meteorology
Supervised by: Dr. Paul-Arthur Monerie
This project will investigate the effects of climate change on tropical precipitation for the end of the 21st century. The research will focus on understanding the uncertainty (differences between projections) in future changes in monsoon precipitation. Two emission scenarios (historical and future) and climate model outputs will be used to assess the effect of climate change.
Task 1: The student will spend the first week reading the relevant publications on the effects of climate change on monsoon precipitation and will familiarise with the database and the programming language. Task 2: the second week will be dedicated to the investigation of model biases and associated future changes in summer monsoon precipitation, using a large ensemble of state-of-the art climate models. Task 3: the third task will consist in defining groups of models, to assess how simulated in summer monsoon precipitation is sensitive to the model’s components. A group will for instance be composed of the models that have the same atmosphere model, or models that have the same ocean model, as well as the land and sea ice models, and differences in the convective schemes. This task is expected to take a week and will be mostly based on a literature review. Task 4: A week and a half will be focused on effects of climate change for each of the groups of models defined in Task 3, on summer monsoon precipitation. Task 5: The student will analyse how uncertainty in changes in precipitation could be linked to how models simulate the future change of the atmospheric circulation of the sea surface temperature. This fifth task is expected to take a week. However, should the student have spare time within the six-week period, there is plenty of scope for further investigation.
As the bulk of this project involves analysing climate model data, experience with a programming language would be an advantage (e.g., Matlab, NCL, Python). However, analysis code and informal training and support will be provided. The student should have an interest in meteorology/climatology/oceanography.
Throughout this project, the student will have the opportunity to gain knowledge in climate dynamics, oceanography, and tropical meteorology, as well as to have an overview on the impact of climate change. The project will also allow the student to develop their data analysis and scientific programming skills, with support from the supervisors. As an optional output the student will have the opportunity to work on communication skills, preparing a presentation for a scientific audience.
Within the Department of Meteorology, Whiteknights campus. Can also be done remotely.
Preferred hours are 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday, but could be negotiated if needed.
Saturday 01 June 2024 - Thursday 15 August 2024
The deadline to apply for this project is 5pm on Friday 5th April 2024. To make an application, please go to the following link and complete the application form: https://forms.office.com/e/pMgea0dAHv. To find this project in the application form, please filter ‘school of project applying to’ and select School of Mathematical, Physical & Computational Sciences