The My Climate & Me Team is made up of:
Richard Betts – Leads Climate Impacts area, specialising in ecosystem-hydrology-climate interactions.
Areas of expertise:
- Large-scale modelling of ecosystem-hydrology-climate interactions
- Land use change and deforestation
- Integrate impacts modelling
Career Background:
- BSc (Physics), University of Bristol, 1991.
- MSc (Meteorology and Applied Climatology), University of Birmingham, 1992.
- PhD (Meteorology), University of Reading, 1998.
Richard joined the Met Office Hadley Centre in 1992 to work on the new land surface scheme of the Unified Model, the Met Office Surface Exchange Scheme (MOSES). His work on the second version (MOSESII) involved implementing the tiled land surface representation and coupling the TRIFFID vegetation model. Between 1994–1998 I also worked on my PhD on modelling the influence of the vegetated land surface on climate and climate change.
In 2002–2003 Richard spent four months at CSIRO and the Australian National University working on landscape fire modelling. In 2003 he became manager of the new Ecosystems and Climate Impacts team, leading the development of this new science area in the Met Office and in 2007 he became head of the new Climate Impacts strategic area.
Peter Stott – leads the Climate Monitoring and Attribution team.
Areas of expertise:
- Climate modelling of past and future climate.
- Attribution of past changes to their natural and anthropogenic contributions.
- Climate monitoring.
Career Background:
Peter joined the Met Office Hadley Centre in 1996 to work on detection and attribution of past climate change. During that time he wrote many scientific papers, often in collaboration with colleagues from other institutes, and was involved in the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a Contributing Author. In 2006 he became Manager of the Understanding and Attributing Climate Change team and in 2008 became the Head of the Climate Monitoring and Attribution group. From 2004 he was heavily involved in the production of the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC as a Lead Author for both the Working Group 1 report on the Physical Science Basis and the Synthesis Report, which in addition covers impacts, adaptation and mitigation. He thinks it is important to communicate scientific findings about climate to the public and has given many media interviews, including on TV, radio and to many print journalists.
Peter has a first degree in Mathematics from Durham University and completed Part III of the Mathematics Tripos at Cambridge University. The research for his PhD at Imperial College, London was atmospheric modelling of the environmental consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. After that he carried out post-doctoral research at Edinburgh University on stratospheric ozone depletion.
Kate Willett – climate scientist working on high resolution climate data with a focus on surface humidity and thermal comfort.
Areas of expertise:
- Observational data – issues of quality and homogeneity.
- Recent climate change in the atmospheric system.
- Human thermal comfort and climate.
Career Background:
Kate joined the Met Office Hadley Centre in 2007, where she spent the first year working on human thermal comfort and climate. Prior to that, Kate spent a year working as a post-doc at Yale University studying the exceedance of thermal comfort thresholds in a warmer and moister climate. She attained her PhD from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia on the creation and analysis of a global surface humidity dataset. This followed a BSc in Environmental Sciences also at the University of East Anglia.
Rob Hutt – Creative Director & Presenter
“Challenge everything, especially yourself”
Areas of expertise:
- Communication
- Innovation process and creative behaviours
- Video Production
Career Background:
Rob joined the Met Office in 2007 as an Aviation Account Manager selling forecast services to the aviation industry. Becoming increasingly interested in the breadth of science contained in the Met Office, Rob joined the Future Business Team as a Business Development Manager. Rob had the vision of unlocking some of that hidden expertise for the benefit of non-scientists. One area in particular that interested Rob was the massive amount of climate science expertise in the Met Office and the difficulties faced when attempting to communicate this complex subject to the public. It was this challenge that prompted Rob to develop My Climate & Me as a new communications channel that aims to bridge the gap between climate scientists and the public.
Maria Thorne – Project Manager
“Everything will be alright in the end and if it’s not alright, then it’s clearly not the end”
Areas of expertise:
- Public involvement
- Wrangling creatives
- Managing innovation projects
- Turning her hand to anything
Career Background:
Maria’s always been involved in managing projects which were about new ways of doing things. She joined the Met Office in 2008 and became an active member of the innovation community. A couple of kids later, (she comes to work for a break), she focuses all her attentions on projects which seek to engage, inspire and inform. She’s officially the project manager, but she’ll turn her hand to anything (see photo!)
My Climate & Me 