Professor Rosa Barciela

Rosa Barciela is the Met Office Principal Scientific Consultant and Strategic Head of Health Science Integration (Weather and Climate).

Areas of expertise

Rosa is an international recognised expert working across science, technology and services. She brings a unique mix of broad and deep expertise built over years of working embedded in Weather and Climate Science (13 years), Services (2 years), Applied Science (7 years) and Policy (1 year) across the entire production chain, from systems thinking engineering in numerical weather and climate predictions, to their user-led drivers and downstream customer base and impacts.

Her work focuses on bridging the gap between research, policy and the need for high quality, actionable information addressing real-world challenges, nationally and internationally, building equitable and ethical partnerships.

Specific areas of expertise include:

Pull-through of weather and climate Science to Services.
Hazards to decision-making, including extreme events and impacts.
Numerical Weather Prediction, Earth System Biogeochemical Modelling, Data Assimilation.
Artificial neural networks.
UK and international policy and capacity building.
Trans-disciplinary and multi-sector expertise across the environment, public health, water, energy, marine and food security nexus.

Current activities

Rosa is currently responsible for accelerating the transition (from deterministic) to an ensemble-only Numerical Weather Prediction system (for both global and UK convective-scale forecasting) that will underpin all the Met Office products and services by 2026.

She leads cross-disciplinary teams of scientists, operational meteorologists, technologists, broadcasters and experts in products and services, people development and communication. This work enables the broad use of ensembles across advice and services, including in innovative forecast products particularly in terms of risk of high-impact weather and extreme events, and across multiple sectors and stakeholders.

Additionally, Rosa co-leads, with Bristol University, the climate-health Met Office Academic Partnership Super-Research Advisory Panel and is the UK National Focal Point for Integrated Health Services at the World Meteorological Organization.

Rosa is a core member, and climate science lead, of the trans-disciplinary “We Are the Possible” team, who won the international Falling Walls Engage 2024 award in the Science Engagement category.

Career highlights include:

Strategic Head and Project Executive of the Ensemble Exploitation Strategic Action.
Principal Science Lead of the Newton Fund Weather and Climate Science for Services Partnership South Africa (WCSSP South Africa).
Principal Science Lead of the Early Action for Cholera project (EACH), in support of FCDO and UNICEF, and in partnership with Florida University.
Strategic Head of Health Science Integration, author of the first Met Office Health Strategy and co-developer of the National Environmental Public Health Surveillance System (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/environmental-public-health-surveillance-system/environmental-public-health-surveillance-system-ephss).
World Meteorological Organisation SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 Task Team member.
Scientific contributions to the 3rd UK Climate Change Risk Assessment and Expert Reviewer to IPCC Working Group II Assessment Reports 5 and 6, including the Summary for Policy Makers.
Co-founding member of the Met Office contribution to the Copernicus European Marine Service (CMEMS).
Principal Science Lead of the UK Ocean Biogeochemistry Inter-Comparison project (i-MarNet, 2014) that adopted MEDUSA as the next generation biogeochemical model for the UKESM and the first UK national biogeochemistry community model.

Career Background

Rosa obtained her PhD, in global Earth System biogeochemical modelling and data assimilation, from the University of Southampton and the National Oceanography Centre, in 2002. Upon joining the Met Office that year, Rosa worked on developing, running and evaluating numerical weather prediction and climate models, gaining practical experience with all components of those systems, including data assimilation, metrics, forecast suites, observation processing, post-processing and data delivery. In 2012 she was seconded to Defra’s Marine and Fisheries Policy Directorate, which made her focus her career on the application of (weather and climate) science to deliver scientific-driven solutions, multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder by nature. Rosa has significant experience in leading diverse, multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary teams across the UK, Africa, the USA and Europe. She has written over 90 peer-reviewed scientific and technical papers and reports, including consultancy reports. She wrote one of the first papers on the application of artificial intelligence to environmental forecasting (Barciela et al., 1999; https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-3800(99)00102-7). Rosa serves in multiple national and international boards, steering committees and expert task teams.

External recognition

Commissioner: Future Earth, Brain and Health - Nature Mental Health Commission.
NERC Digital Solutions independent Advisory Board member.
EUMETSAT Science Programme Committee Expert Advisor.
Climate Change and Antimicrobial Resistance (CLIMAR) Advisory Board member.
School for Public Health Environments Research (SPHERE) advisory board member.
UK Health Security Agency Programme Board Climate Change and Adaptation Sub-group.
Professor of Climate, Environment and Public Health.

Awards