An external view of the Met Office building at night.

Dr Andrew Bushell

Areas of expertise

  • Parametrization development
  • Non-orographic gravity wave modelling
  • Middle atmosphere modelling
  • Space weather

Current activities

As well as leading non-orographic gravity wave parametrization research and development in the Met Office, Andrew coordinates with groups in Forecasting Research and Development and Climate Research to maintain, develop and understand the behaviour of middle atmosphere (stratosphere-mesosphere) configurations of the Unified Model.


Recent middle atmosphere activity has concentrated upon the impact of differences in the ozone climatology represented in the Unified Model upon dynamical variability in the tropics, in particular the quasi-biennial oscillation. Andrew supervised a 2009 summer placement student on a project to investigate statistical behaviour of Stratospheric Sudden Warmings in climate configurations of the Unified Model and the Met Office operational stratospheric analysis data.


Andrew maintains an active interest in bridging the gap between academic research and operational capability related to forecasting of conditions in the thermosphere and ionosphere, an aspect of space weather. This has led to ongoing participation in the COST ES0803 activity Developing Space Weather Products and Services in Europe.

Career background

Andrew has been working in the middle atmosphere field since 2003. Prior to this date he was working on development of Unified Model parametrizations in the troposphere, including the PC2 scheme, the large-scale precipitation scheme and large-scale cloud scheme. From 1998 to 2000, Andrew was part of the research team that successfully integrated the newly developed semi-Lagrangian Dynamics core with the MetUM physics parametrizations package.