Catherine Senior
Cath leads the Understanding Climate Change area which includes work on understanding and modelling key physical climate processes and feedbacks.
Areas of expertise
- Model development across space and timescales
- Evaluating climate models
- Climate processes and feedbacks
Current activities
Cath leads a team of around 20 scientists working on understanding climate processes, feedbacks and uncertainty. Main areas of work include High Resolution Global Climate Modelling, Global Water Cycle, Extreme events, Climate sensitivity and feedbacks to Man's influence and development of Seamless Ensemble Prediction systems.
Career background
Cath joined the Met Office in 1986 after completing a first degree in Mathematics at the University of Leeds. She has worked for her entire career on understanding climate processes and feedbacks, with a notable focus on cloud feedbacks and model development and evaluation. In 1997 she became the Manager of Climate sensitivity and then in 2003 the Head of Understanding Climate Change.
External recognition
- Member of Nobel Prize winning IPCC Team
- Lead Author IPCC 3rd Assessment Report (Working Group 1)
- Contributing author and reviewer, IPCC 1st,2nd and 4th Assessment reports (Working Group 1)
- Member of WCRP Working Group on Coupled Models
- Co-chair of Scientific Steering Group of the Joint Weather and Climate Research Programme