Research Interests
My doctoral research involves the physical mechanisms behind the decline in rainfall in subtropical regions. Many of these regions, such as central Chile and the Mediterranean, are characterised by wet winters and dry summers and so already have water resource management issues. My supervisors are Tim Woollings and Isla Simpson (NCAR).
My project focuses on understanding how much of the precipitation decline over these regions is due to climate change, and how much of this decline is directly due to rising temperatures (thermodynamic) or whether it is also because of the changing location of the winter storm tracks (dynamic). More recently, I've become interested in the diversity of methods for separating dynamic and thermodynamics themselves, and how they each separate coupled dynamic-thermodynamic changes.
I also evaluate whether climate models accurately simulate these rainfall trends: if not, why not? This will help our physical understanding of future precipitation patterns and contribute to more accurate climate change projections for these vulnerable regions.