An external view of the Met Office building at night.

Professor Chris Hewitt

Areas of expertise

  • Climate services

  • Climate research

  • User engagement

  • Leading large projects and consortia

Publications by Chris Hewitt

Current activities

Chris is the Head of the International Climate Services team at the Met Office and Professor of Climate Science at the University of Southern Queensland. As of late 2020 he is also Temporary Head of Applied Science and Scientific Consultancy.

Chris co-leads the climate service activities in the Climate Science for Services Partnership in China (CSSP China) through close partnership with organisations in China and the UK, representing Government institutes, academia and the private sector. He leads and coordinates major multi-year multi-partner European Commission-funded climate projects (EUCP project for climate predictions, EUPORIAS for climate services, Climateurope for coordination of European climate-related activities). He is the co-chair of the Met Office Academic Partnership with the University of Bristol, facilitating research-related collaboration between the Met Office and the University with a focus on hazard to decision-making.

Further afield he works with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) leading international Expert Teams (Tailoring Climate Information and User Engagement for climate services), is a member of the Implementation Coordination Team on the Climate Services Information System and a member of Task Team on Climate Services Toolkit and Downscaling. He also has undertaken ad hoc secondments to the WMO to develop the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS), drawing on the global network of experts and helps with implementation of the GFCS and climate services worldwide where appropriate.

Career background

Chris began his career in the Met Office Hadley Centre as a research scientist, spending his first 10 years developing climate models and undertaking climate research and climate modelling. His next decade built on his scientific research and moved into project and programme management for large climate-related research projects. Since 2010 he has been developing and delivering climate services with many organisations around the world ensuring pull-through of science to services for societal benefit and guiding science developments to be aligned to societal needs. Following World Climate Conference-3 in 2009 he has taken a lead role establishing and developing the UK Met Office’s climate services worldwide, has been central to developing the UN’s Global Framework for Climate Services, leads major climate service projects funded by the European Commission and the UK government and leads several international climate service-related Expert Teams for the World Meteorological Organization. Since he obtained his PhD in meteorology from the University of Reading in 2000 he has published over 60 peer-reviewed collaborative papers on climate research, climate modelling and climate services while at the Met Office and since 2019 also at the University of Southern Queensland.

External recognition

  • Co-chair of the WMO international Expert Team on tailoring climate information for decision-making

  • Member of WMO Standing Committee on Climate Services

  • Member of Academic Committee of Laboratory for Climate Studies, China Meteorological Administration

  • Co-chair of Met Office Academic Partnership with the University of Bristol

  • Member of WMO Expert Team on Climate Services Information System

  • A Lead Editor for Journal of Meteorological Research Special Issue on climate services

  • Member of WMO Expert Team/writers of Global Framework for Climate Services (2011-2019)

  • Co-chair of WMO Expert Team on Tailoring Climate Information (2018-2020)