Global modelling

The Global Model Evaluation and Development group is responsible for developing global configurations of the Met Office Unified Model and coupled model as well as improving the Met Office capability for Space Weather prediction. The group is split into four teams:

Model evaluation and diagnostics

Diagnosing errors in our models is the first step towards solving the problems and improving our forecasts. Comparing the Met Office Unified Model and coupled model against observations on timescales from hours to decades, combined with feedback from our forecasters and other model users, enables key model biases to be identified. The Model Evaluation and Diagnostics team acts as a focal point for such evaluation work and aims to understand the cause of the biases from a process-based perspective, before working with model developers to fix deficiencies.

Global atmosphere model development

The team of scientists working in this area have a goal which is to continually develop and deliver the best global atmospheric and land surface model for all scales from weather to climate. This team defines, develops and tests packages of improvements to the global atmosphere (GA) and global land (GL) model configurations in order to correct model deficiencies and to pull through new science. It designs and performs process based studies of model sensitivity to new formulation and uncertainties in physics and dynamics. In the near future, this team will play a significant role in the assessment of coupled NWP configurations, LFric, sub-10km scale (grey scale) global modelling and increased vertical resolution.”

Global coupled model development and processes

The ocean plays an important role in global weather and climate. This team aims to understand processes associated with air-sea interaction and deliver improved coupled model capability for weather and climate models. A current focus of the work in this team is developing and analysing the impact of running coupled models on weather forecast timescales allowing the sea surface temperature to evolve and feed back onto the atmosphere above. In future this system will be used for all weather and ocean forecasts.

Space weather

Space weather events encompass conditions on the Sun, the solar wind, the magnetosphere, the ionosphere, and the neutral atmosphere, and have both eruptive and quiescent aspects. The eruptive component consists of solar flares, coronal mass ejections and solar energetic particles. The quiescent component includes the increase in solar luminescence with the sunspot cycle and the elevated flux of galactic cosmic rays, which is anti-correlated with the sunspot cycle. This team is responsible for improving the Met Office systems for forecasting space weather.