An external view of the Met Office building at night.

Dr Graham Weedon

Graham works on evaluating the output from land surface models such as JULES against observations as well as working on the datasets needed for running the models.

Areas of expertise

  • Data analysis

  • Time-series analysis

  • Land surface processes

  • Use of satellite data to validate land surface processes

Publications by Graham

Current activities

Graham works in the Land Surface group and collaborates with the Boundary Layer Team on developing the JULES land surface model. He is based in Oxfordshire and also collaborates with UKCEH there and with the Met Office Research Unit based at Cardington, Bedfordshire.

Current work includes evaluating river discharge outputs from JULES model against observations partly based on cross-spectral analysis.

A recent focus has been using observations to investigate the performance of JULES in terms of representing evapotranspiration, dewfall and photosynthesis during the 2018 meteorological drought.

Graham was involved in creating the WFDE5 dataset hosted by ECMWF. This consists of a global, hourly, half-degree resolution meteorological forcing variables (e.g. near-surface temperature, solar radiation, rainfall etc) over land, suitable for running land surface models and global hydrological models. The WFDE5 dataset, derived from the ERA5 reanalysis, currently covering 1979-2019, is a successor to the WFDEI and WATCH Forcing Data datasets.

Career background

Graham joined the Met Office Hadley Centre in mid 2007 as part of the land surface team at Wallingford within the JCHMR.

From 2004 he the Coordinator of NERC CLASSIC at the University of Swansea.

He spent twelve years as a Senior lecturer in Geology and Earth Sciences at the University of Bedfordshire (formerly University of Luton). As part of Graham's research into palaeoclimatology he participated on three Ocean Drilling Program legs (Legs 117, 154 and 181 in: the Arabian Sea near Oman; the western equatorial Atlantic near Brazil; and in the Southern Ocean near New Zealand).

Graham helped pioneer the use of time-series analysis in palaeoclimatology resulting in the book: Weedon, 2003, Time-Series Analysis and Cyclostratigraphy: Examining Stratigraphic records of Environmental Cycles, published by Cambridge University Press.

Graham's earlier research career involved a period (1987-1992) at the University of Cambridge as a postdoctoral researcher and Research fellow at Downing College following completion of a doctorate (D.Phil.) in Geology at the University of Oxford.