Dr Lesley Allison
Lesley works on understanding the ocean’s role in climate variability and change, with a focus on ocean heat content and sea level
Areas of expertise
- Ocean circulation and climate variability
- Ocean heat content
- Sea level change
Publications by Lesley Allison
Current activities
Lesley is a member of the Sea Level team. She explores the ocean’s role in climate through enhancing understanding of changes in ocean heat content and sea level projections. Her recent work includes examining the use of ‘synthetic profiles’ from climate model simulations as a method for quantifying uncertainty in estimates of observed ocean heat content change. She has also done some work on comparing signals from independent observational indicators of planetary heating. Lesley is currently working on centennial projections of sea level.
Career background
From 2002 to 2013 Lesley was a member of the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, graduating with a first class BSc in Meteorology, and then completing a PhD in Physical Oceanography. For her PhD she used theory and numerical modelling to examine adjustment mechanisms of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the density structure of the global ocean. In February 2009 she participated in an oceanographic research cruise near Antarctica. Lesley then spent four years as a postdoctoral researcher, working on the topic of changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), during which time she also did some undergraduate teaching. She continued exploring AMOC changes during a project as a research fellow at the University of Exeter, before joining the Met Office in 2014. She spent two years in Weather Science, working on novel statistical methods for forecast verification. In 2016, Lesley joined the Sea Level team within the Climate, Cryosphere and Ocean group in the Hadley Centre.