About Mrs. Helen Champion

Helen maintains meteorological data archives for dispersion work

Areas of expertise

• Meteorological data archives
• Web design and maintenance
• UNIX scripting
• Dispersion ensembles
• FMD

Publications by Helen Champion

Current activities

Helen is currently migrating Numerical Atmospheric-dispersion Modelling Environment (NAME) meteorological data archives covering 1994-2008 to a new storage system, and verifying data integrity in the process. This work also involves migrating user interfaces to the Met Office-wide meteorological archives, which are vital for dispersion work.

Helen is preparing a complete overhaul of the dispersion intranet site.

Career background

Helen has worked on dispersion modelling since 2000. She played a key role in the Met Office's response to the 2001 FMD epidemic, using NAME to predict the airborne spread of the disease. Helen also worked on the  ENSEMBLE project, combining dispersion forecasts from organisations across Europe to improve emergency response capability, and conducted initial trials of running NAME using EPS data from  ECMWF.

When Helen first joined the Met Office in 1996, she researched air flow over mountains, while completing a MPhil at the University of Southampton.

Prior to joining the Met Office, Helen obtained a BSc in Mathematics and French from the University of Exeter.