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.

• FlyZero - Climate impact of emissions from aircrafts using alternative fuel and energy systems
• Investigating HALocarbon impacts on the global Environment (InHALE)
• National Centre for Atmospheric Science
• National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO)
• Ozone Recovery from Merged Observational Data and Model Analysis (OREGANO)
• POLYisotopologues of GReenhouse gases: Analysis and Modelling (POLYGRAM)
• Process analysis, observations and modelling - cleaner air for Delhi (PROMOTE)
• Sources and Impacts of Short-Lived Anthropogenic Chlorine (SISLAC)
• Stratospheric and upper tropospheric processes for better climate predictions (StratoClim)
• The Global Methane Budget
• Why is Lower Stratospheric Ozone Not Recovering?

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:

• SOEE2481 Atmospheric Pollution from Local to Global Scales
• SOEE2701 Fieldwork and Tutorials 2
• SOEE3190 Earth Observation from Space

I also teach on the modules:

• SOEE1281 Atmosphere
• SOEE1444 Fieldwork and Tutorials 1
• SOEE3431 Atmospheric Pollution: Causes, Impact and Regulation

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

• Matilda Pimlott
• Emily Dowd
• Zihao Wang