Professor Martyn Chipperfield

Professor Martyn Chipperfield

Profile

I am an atmospheric scientist within the School of Earth and Environment. I am also a member and former Director of the Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science (ICAS).

After obtaining my PhD at Cambridge, I worked in the Space Science Department of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and then at the French Met Office in Toulouse. I returned to Cambridge in 1993 where I was a Research Fellow and Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry. I moved to Leeds in January 2000.

My research group consists of 5 PhD students and 5 Post-Doctoral research fellows. Our current research includes:

  • Modelling of tropospheric chemistry and aerosols (e.g. impact of chlorine/bromine/iodine).
  • Studies of stratospheric chemistry and transport (e.g. stratospheric ozone depletion and recovery and impact of solar variability).
  • Interpreting and exploiting satellite observations in the stratosphere and troposphere.
  • Data assimilation and inverse modelling to retrieve carbon fluxes.
  • Modelling of regional air quality using regional models.
  • Modelling mesospheric metal layer chemistry.

I am the PI and lead developer of the TOMCAT/SLIMCAT 3-D atmospheric model. I am a PI in the NERC National Centre for Earth Observation. I am PI (or Co-I) on the current NERC projects LSO3, Polygram, InHALE, MeteorStrat and the ESA OREGANO project.

I was the first Director of the Leeds-York NERC Doctoral Training Partnership (2013-2017). The DTP started in 2014 and recruits around 28 PhD students per year across 6 departments in the two universities.

I am currently on the Science Team for the ESA Explorer 11 candidate mission:  The Changing-Atmosphere Infra-red Tomography Explorer (CAIRT). CAIRT will be the first limb-sounder with imaging Fourier-transform infrared technology in space. By observing simultaneously the atmosphere from the mid-troposphere to the lower thermosphere (about 5 to 115 km altitude), CAIRT will provide global observations of ozone, temperature, water vapour, as well as key halogen and nitrogen compounds.

I have served on a number of national/international committees, especially related to ozone depletion, satellite missions and chemistry-climate modelling. I am currently on the Steering Committee for the 2026 WMO/UNEP Assessment for Stratospheric Ozone

Awards:

  • Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award 2015
  • Royal Society of Chemistry John Jeyes Award 2018
  • Elected Fellow of American Geophysical Union 2020

Research interests

I have published over 360 peer-reviewed papers (h-index 63). A formatted list is available here.

  • Chemistry of the lower and middle atmosphere
  • Global modelling of stratospheric and tropospheric chemistry and transport
  • Chemistry-climate interactions
  • Stratospheric ozone layer depletion and recovery
  • Atmosphere-land interactions

Group Alumni

  • Dr Stewart Davies (PhD 2003), Senior Environment and Sustainability Advisor, efinium.
  • Prof. Bjoern-Martin Sinnhuber (Postdoc), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany.
  • Prof. Miriam Sinnhuber (Postdoc), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany.
  • Dr Wuhu Feng (Postdoc), NCAS Scientist, University of Leeds.
  • Dr Cate Bridgeman (Postdoc)
  • Prof. Steve Arnold (PhD 2004, Postdoc), Professor, University of Leeds.
  • Dr Jeff Evans (Postdoc)
  • Prof Dominick Spracklen (PhD 2005), Professor, University of Leeds.
  • Dr Adrian Hill (PhD 2006), ECMWF
  • Prof Wenshou Tian (Postdoc, Visitor), Dean, College of Atmospheric Scences, Lanzhou University, China.
  • Dr Kirsty Pringle (PhD 2006), Project Manager - Software Sustainability Institute, University of Edinburgh.
  • Dr Beatriz Monge-Sanz (PhD 2008, Postdoc), Senior Researcher, University of Oxford.
  • Dr Lara Gunn (PhD 2008)
  • Dr Tom Breider (PhD 2010), Principal Data Scientist, The RepTrak Company, Boston, MA, USA.
  • Dr Sarah Monks (PhD 2011)
  • Dr Chris Wilson (PhD 2011, Postdoc), NCEO, University of Leeds.
  • Dr Sandip Dhomse (Postdoc), University of Leeds.
  • Prof Ryan Hossaini (PhD 2012, Postdoc), Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry, Lancaster University.
  • Dr Michael Holloway (Postdoc), Senior Data Scientist, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Lancaster.
  • Dr Erin Dawkins (PhD 2014), NASA Godard Spaceflight Center, USA.
  • Dr Richard Pope (PhD 2014, Postdoc), NERC Fellow, NCEO, University of Leeds.
  • Dr Nigel Richards (Postdoc), Associate Research Scientist, NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center, USA.
  • Dr Joe McNorton (PhD 2016, Postdoc), Research Scientist, ECMWF.
  • Dr Tim Keslake (PhD 2017), Chemistry teacher.
  • Dr Natasha Aylett (PhD 2019)
  • Dr Evgenia Galytska (PhD 2019), University of Bremen, Germany.
  • Dr Shane Daly (PhD 2020), Analytical Development Chemist, Thermo Fisher Scientific.
  • Dr Yajuan Li (Visitor), School of Electronic Engineering, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, China.
  • Dr Giorgio Taverna (PhD 2020), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany.
  • Dr Chris Kelly (PhD 2020), Software Engineer, ECMWF.
  • Dr Andreas Chrysanthou (PhD 2020, Postdoc), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
  • Dr Peter Joyce (PhD 2022)
  • Dr Mike Cartwright (PhD 2023), Research Associate, University of Leicester.
  • Dr Yang Li (Visitor), Lecturer, Chengdu University of Information Technology, China.
  • Dr Xin Zhou (Visitor), Lecturer, Chengdu University of Information Technology, China.
  • Dr Antonio Bruno (PhD 2023, Postdoc), NCEO Research Associate, University of Leicester.
  • Dr Matilda Pimlott (PhD 2023)
  • Dr Carlo Arosio (Postdoc), University of Bremen, Germany.
  • Dr Ailish Graham (Postdoc), Research Associate, University of Leeds.
  • Dr Emily Dowd (PhD 2024, Postdoc), Research Associate, University of Leeds.

 

<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working 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

  • PhD, Atmospheric Science, University of Cambridge
  • BA, Natural Sciences (1st class honours), University of Cambridge

Professional memberships

  • Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC, CChem)
  • Royal Meteorological Society (FRMetS)
  • American Geophysical Union (Fellow)
  • American Meteorological Society

Student education

I contribute to teaching in the areas of environmental science, atmospheric chemistry and satellite earth observation.

I am module leader for:

I also teach on the modules:

Before coming to Leeds I taught physical chemistry at the University of Cambridge and for the Open University.

Research groups and institutes

  • Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science
  • Atmospheric Chemistry and Aerosols

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>