Jamie is a climate scientist working on ice sheets and sea-level.
Since 2009, Jamie has been working on an EU-funded project called ice2sea. The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlighted the uncertainty in future projections of sea-level, and specifically the fact that a large component of this uncertainty stems from processes involving continental ice (ice sheets, ice caps and glaciers). The aim of the ice2sea project, therefore, is to reduce this uncertainty and improve our understanding of potential future changes in sea level, and the processes affecting it. The project will provide input to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.
The mass balance of ice sheets (the balance between accumulation through snowfall and ablation through melting and calving) has potential impacts on global sea-level, and will be affected by changes in the local climate. Jamie's work involves investigation of these effects for Greenland through high-resolution regional climate modelling under different future emissions scenarios. This work will lead to a clearer understanding of the links between changes in climate, ice sheets and sea-level, and will reduce uncertainties in these processes, in line with the aims of the ice2sea project.
Jamie joined the Met Office Hadley Centre in November 2003, and worked for more than five years in the atmospheric chemistry and aerosols teams. During this time he completed an MSc in Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate at the University of Reading. He moved to the sea-ice and land-ice team in April 2009. Previously, Jamie did a PhD in the chemistry of star-forming regions in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leeds. He also has a BSc in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Glasgow.
Last updated: 4 April 2014