Dr Prince Xavier
Prince works on the seamless assessment of error growth in global models.
Areas of expertise
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Tropical intraseasonal variability.
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Large scale air-sea interactions in the tropics.
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Indian monsoon variability and predictability.
Current activities
Prince is a climate scientist working on the seamless assessment of model error growth in various configurations of the Unified Model. The Unified Model facilitates a seamless framework for the assessment of physical processes across a range of forecast time scales, ranging from the short-range weather forecasts to long-range forecasts and climate projections. Prince uses an approach to assess the development of model errors across time scales by running short-range forecasts (five days) with the climate model and investigate relationship between initial drift and its climate bias. He also investigates the role of air-sea coupling in the development of initial model drifts. This seamless assessment of model errors helps to better understand the root causes of climate model biases and rectify them.
A major part of Prince's current research activity focuses on the assessment of tropical intraseasonal variability known as Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) in various configurations of the Unified Model. Prince's research interests include understanding the physical processes important for the representation of MJO in the climate models such as the role of coupling with the ocean and the hydrological cycle in the tropics. In his spare time he continues to work on the Indian monsoon variability with various groups.
Career background
Prince joined the Met Office Hadley Centre in 2009 in the Seamless Ensemble Prediction group. Before that, Prince was a post-doctoral researcher at the Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique in Paris. His post-doctoral research was in the framework of ENSEMBLES, an EU-funded Integrated Project to develop an ensemble prediction system for climate change. His specific role was to assess the tropical intraseasonal variability in the ENSEMBLES system against observations. Prince obtained his PhD for his work on extended range predictability and prediction of Indian summer monsoon from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He did an MSc in atmospheric science before his PhD, and his research during the Masters focused on quantitative estimation of the limit of predictability of monsoon intraseasonal variability and development of empirical methods for its extended range (15-20 days) prediction.