1. Faculty of Environment
  2. School of Earth and Environment
  3. People
  4. Profile
Professor Cathryn Birch

Professor Cathryn Birch

  • Position: Professor in Meteorology and Climate
  • Areas of expertise: weather and climate extremes; tropical meteorology; convection-permitting models; climate impacts (flooding, health); weather and flood forecasting; early warning systems
  • Email: C.E.Birch@leeds.ac.uk
  • Phone: +44(0)113 343 9831
  • Location: 10.07 Priestley Building
  • Website: Bluesky | LinkedIn | Googlescholar | ORCID

Profile

Cathryn is a Professor in Meteorology and Climate in the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds. She has expertise in dynamical meteorology and high-resolution modelling of weather and climate. Cathryn works to better understand the causes of high impact weather to improve weather forecasts, flood forecasts and Early Warning System capability. She also provides expertise to scientists from the fields of hydrology, health and agriculture through climate-related projects. Prior to her academic position, Cathryn worked as a Senior Scientist at the Met Office and has continued to collaborate closely with them on a wide range of projects.

Prizes

  • 2024: Emerging Environmental Impact Award for improving national early warning capability for flooding, University of Leeds Research Impact and Engagement Awards
  • 2021: University of Leeds Queen’s Anniversary Prize, for Empowering tropical communities to face the challenges of extreme weather
  • 2020: Water Woman Award for Research Funding, Water@Leeds
  • 2019: Best PhD/Undergraduate Final Year Project Supervisor award, Faculty of Environment Partnership Awards
  • 2014: European Meteorological Society Young Scientist Award
  • 2013: L F Richardson Award
  • 2003: William Arthur Crabtree Scholarship

Research interests

Current projects

  • Implementing and testing nowcasting tools for severe weather in Africa, NERC Impact Acceleration Account (£19k)
  • National Hub on Net Zero, Health and Extreme Heat (HEARTH), UKRI (£6M)
  • Satellite observations of floods, Met Office (£60k)
  • Tracking the impacts of climate change on maternal and child health: the Global Heat Attribution Project (GHAP), Wellcome Trust (£3M)
  • Humid heat extremes in the Global (Sub)Tropics (H2X), NERC Pushing the Frontiers (£1M)
  • Consultation on flood early warning systems, West Yorkshire Combined Authority via WY FLIP (£60k)
  • Developing solutions for temperature-related health impacts in the UK (THERM-UK), NERC highlight topic (£3M)
  • Developing an Open-source Software Application for Community Level Cholera Outbreak-Risk Prediction and Feedback through Early Warning Systems (CholOut-EWS), Wellcome Trust (£500k)
  • FORecasting high-impact Weather And extreme Rainfall Drivers and dynamics for Southeast Asia (FORWARDS) (£1.75M)

Past projects

  • TerraMaris: The Maritime Continent – Driver of the Global Climate System, NERC large grant (£3.7M)
  • Enhanced Surface Water Flood Forecasting (£342k) via the Yorkshire Integrated Catchment Solutions Programme (iCASP), NERC (£5.9M)
  • Satellite observations of urban floods, funded through iCASP in collaboration with SatSENSE (£40k)
  • Climate, heat and maternal and neonatal health in Africa (CHAMNHA), Belmont Forum (£500k)
  • WCSSP SE Asia Systematic Analysis of real time forecasts (FORSEA), Newton Fund via Met Office (£1.3M)
  • K-Scale – Towards km-scale global modelling, Met Office (£176k)
  • GCRF-Africap Climate Smart Agricultural Development, Global Challenges Research Fund (£9.2M)
  • GCRF-African-SWIFT, Global Challenges Research Fund (£8M)
  • WCSSP SE Asia Systematic Analysis of real time forecasts (FORSEA), Newton Fund via Met Office (£1.3M)
  • WCSSP India: Convective-scale regional coupled environmental prediction model evaluation and development (CASPER), Newton Fund via Met Office (£900k)
  • WCSSP SE Asia: Vertical structure of the Maritime Continent, Newton Fund via Met Office (£300k)
  • WCSSP SE Asia: Tropical Cyclones, Newton Fund via Met Office (£300k)large grant (£3.7M)
  • GENESIS of Deep Atmospheric Convection, NERC (£300k)
  • CSSP China: Convection-permitting simulations of East Asian climate, Newton Fund via Met Office (£300k)

Papers in review

  • Ramsden, S., C. Birch, S. Jenkins, J. Anderson, A. Aslam: Exploring the use of Flood Warning Systems by Communities in England, J. Flood Risk Managament, submitted.
  • Smith, J. C. Birch, L. Speight, J. Mooney, B. Maybee, J. Marsham: N-FOREWARNS: Regional nowcasting of surface water flooding with a 3-hour lead time predictability limit, Met Apps.
  • Likoya, E., A. Bhave, A. Dougill, C. E. Birch: A Multi-model Perspective of Droughts in Future Climate and Implications for Irrigation in Malawi, J. hydrology, submitted.
  • Asher, M. C., J. W. Piedersen, S. J. Boeing, C. E. Birch, M. A. Trigg, E. K. Kendon: Extreme rainfall and temporal loading in Great Britain: analysis of present and future trends using a convective-scale climate model, Earth’s Future, submitted.
  • Smith, J., C. E. Birch, J. M. Marsham et al.: SII-NowNet: A deep learning framework for nowcasting convection initiation and intensification in the Tropics, Nature npj, in review.
  • Asher, M., M. Trigg, S. Boeing, C. Birch: The sensitivity of urban pluvial flooding to the temporal distribution of rainfall within design storms, J. Flood Risk Man., in review.
  • Msemo, H., C. Birch, A. Taylor, T. james, A. Hartley, S. Chapman, A. Dougill, M. Baidu, S. Peatman: Interdisciplinary assessment of Tanzanian impact-based severe weather forecasts: forecast verification to end-user evaluation, Met Apps., in review.

Current group members

  • Coralie Adams: Postdoc on heat-health and climate (GHAP), 2025-present.
  • Carly Reddington: Postdoc on heat-health and climate (THERM-UK), 2024-present.
  • Sam Ramsden: Impact Translation Fellow on Flood Communication Project, 2023 – present.
  • Lawrence Jackson: Postdoc in the Humid heatwaves in the global (sub)tropics (H2X) project, 2023-present.
  • Zhuo Li: PhD student, Chinese heatwaves, joint Leeds-Nanjing, 2024-present.
  • Jack Law: PhD student, Satellite observations of humid heat extremes over Africa, SENSE CDT, 2023 – present.
  • Anistia Hidayat: PhD student, An Early Warning System for humid heat extremes over the Maritime Continent, Indonesian Met Service (BMKG), 2024-present.
  • Molly Asher: PhD student, Adaptation strategies to pluvial urban flood risk under UKCP18 climate change scenarios, PANORAMA NERC DTP, 2019 - present.
  • Joseph Smith: PhD student, Development of Novel Rainfall Nowcasting Techniques for Southeast Asia, SENSE CDT, 2021 - present.
  • Ashar Aslam: PhD student, Severe weather over Southeast Asia, SENSE CDT, 2021 - present.

Past group members

  • Jack Mustafa: Postdoc in the TerraMaris project, 2024 - present.
  • Simon Peatman: Postdoc in the TerraMaris project, 2018 - 2024.
  • Ben Maybee: iCASP Impact Translation Fellow in Enhanced Surface Water Flood Forecasting project, 2022 - 2023.
  • Isaac Tan: PhD student, Monsoon cold surges, based at Monash University, Australia, 2020 - 2023.
  • Hellen Msemo: Bridging the Gap between Numerical Forecast Evaluation and Value to Decision Makers in Climate Sensitive Sectors, GCRF funded, 2018 - 2022.
  • Emmanuel Likoya: Agricultural Water Modelling Under Different Future Climates and Irrigation Intervention Appraisals for Building Resilience in Malawian Food Productions Systems, GCRF funded, 2018 – 2022.
  • Sarah Chapman: Climate Science Postdoc in GCRF-Africap and CHAMNHA projects, 2018 - 2022.
  • Dean Walker: Seasonal Forecasts of East African rainfall, NERC Industrial CASE award, 2016-2020.
  • Beth Woodhams: Severe Weather over East Africa, NERC DTP Studentship and Convective-scale ensemble forecasting Postdoc in GCRF-Africa SWIFT project, 2015 - 2021.

Leadership

  • European Meteorological Society Awards Commitee
  • Joint Environment Agency – Met Office Surface Water Flooding Strategic Working Group member
  • Scientific Steering Group member for the Met Office K-scale project
  • Executive Management Group member for the THERM-UK and HEARTH research projects
  • Steering committee member for the Centre for Excellence for Modelling the Atmosphere and Climate (CEMAC)
<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Some research projects I'm currently working on, or have worked on, will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>

Qualifications

  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • PhD, Atmospheric Science, University of Leeds
  • BSc, Environmental Science, University of Leeds
  • Mountain Leader, National Mountain Training Association

Professional memberships

  • Associate Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society

Student education

Teaching responsibilities

  • MRes Climate and Atmospheric Science Programme Leader
  • Module leader of Data Analysis and Visualisation modules (computer programming in Python)
  • Climate science teaching in Global Development module within MSc Climate Futures
  • Undergraduate and post-graduate project supervision
  • Personal tutoring for MRes Climate and Atmospheric Science

Examples of past undergraduate and taught postgraduate projects

  • Variability of humid heat across irrigated and non-irrigated areas of Catalonia, Spain
  • The effects of the lake-land breeze on convective storms over Lake Victoria
  • Impact of Nepalese cold waves
  • Atmospheric drivers of Indonesian coffee yields
  • Characterising the structure of the East Asian monsoon
  • Rare hailstorms over Singapore
  • The urban heat island effect in Chinese cities

Research groups and institutes

  • Atmospheric and Cloud Dynamics
  • water@leeds
  • Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science
  • Met Office Academic Partnership

Current postgraduate researchers

<h4>Postgraduate research opportunities</h4> <p>We welcome enquiries from motivated and qualified applicants from all around the world who are interested in PhD study. Our <a href="https://phd.leeds.ac.uk">research opportunities</a> allow you to search for projects and scholarships.</p>