Dr. Emma Howard
2016
Origin Foundation John Monash Scholar
DPhil in Geography and the Environment
Atmospheric science
Oxford
United Kingdom
Maths and Science, Energy and Environment
Climate Change Atmospheric Science
Emma is an atmospheric scientist and with a background in mathematics. With the support of an Origin Foundation John Monash Scholarship, she completed her PhD in the African Climate research group at the school of Geography and the Environment within the University of Oxford. Emma's PhD research focused on understanding the southern African rainfall climate, and its projected future change, with in terms of its local dynamical meteorology. To do this, Emma studied the characteristics, seasonal cycles and dynamics of two key circulation features: tropical lows and the Congo Air Boundary. She found that the Congo Air Boundary is key to explaining the projected future rainfall decline across models of future climate. Since completing her studies, Emma has been working at the University of Reading as a research scientist on the TerraMaris project, studying atmospheric convection and it’s interaction with large scale flow in the Indonesian region. She aims to use the results of high resolution model simulations to improve the representation of convective heating and moistening in models with parameterised convection, with potential flow on effects improving weather forecast skill and decreasing climate model biases.