Dr David Walters
David manages research to develop Global Atmosphere configurations of the Unified Model to be used seamlessly across all timescales.
Current activities
David is the scientific manager of the Global Atmospheric Forecast model development and diagnostics team who are responsible for the maintenance and development of Global Atmosphere configurations of the Unified Model to be used seamlessly across all timescales.
David and his team work in collaboration with Atmospheric Processes and Parametrizations and Dynamics Research scientists, as well as other teams in the Global Model Evaluation and Diagnostics section, to pull through new scientific developments and improvements to the global atmospheric model. They assess model performance across different timescales and its sensitivity to both new model formulations and uncertainties in physical parametrizations and numerical formulation. This allows the resulting global atmosphere configurations to be used in a consistent manner for applications from global weather forecasting for the next few days or weeks, through seasonal and decadal forecasting and out to climate research experiments lasting hundreds of years.
David's personal research interests include the role of resolution in atmospheric model performance and variability and the extension of short-range NWP forecasts to include increased earth-system complexity such as added land-surface complexity or the inclusion of chemistry and aerosols. In particular, David plays an active role in the development of the mineral dust forecasting component of the Unified Model.
Career background
David has worked on atmospheric model development since he joined the Met Office in 2004. He spent several years working on the Met Office Numerical Weather Prediction models resolution and stability before moving on to developing the Crisis Area NWP Models in 2007. In 2008, David was awarded an MSc with distinction in Weather, Climate and Modelling from the University of Reading. David has been managing the Global Atmospheric Model Development group since 2010.
Prior to joining the Met Office, David was awarded an MPhys (1st class hons) followed by a PhD in theoretical physics, both from the University of Wales Swansea. He then spent a year at the University of Manchester as a post-doctoral research associate.
External Recognition
David was awarded the Institute of Physics Computational Physics Group's annual thesis prize in 2003. This is awarded to the author of the PhD thesis that, in the opinion of the Committee, contributes most strongly to the advancement of Computational Physics.
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