Professor Amanda Maycock

Profile

I am Professor in Climate Dynamics in the Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science (ICAS) at the University of Leeds.

We are advertising fully-funded PhD positions in the group for October 2025 entry available to home and international students:

• Variability and future changes in European wind storm risk as part of the NERC UNRISK Centre for Doctoral Training (deadline 13 January 2025).
• Exploring the value of regional decadal climate prediction for adaptation planning as part of the NERC Yorkshire Environmental Sciences Doctoral Training Network (deadline 8 January 2025).
• Current and future drivers of humid heatwaves over Europe as part of the NERC Yorkshire Environmental Sciences Doctoral Training Network (deadline 8 January 2025).
• Climate impacts from water-rich large-magnitude volcanic eruptions as part of the NERC Yorkshire Environmental Sciences Doctoral Training Network (deadline 8 January 2025).

Prizes: 

• 2018 Philip Leverhulme Prize (Leverhulme Trust)
• 2019 Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Researchers (European Geosciences Union)
• 2022 STAC Outstanding Early Career Award (American Meteorological Society)
• 2023 water@leeds Water Woman Award for Research Excellence

Research Fellowships: 

• CIRES Senior Scientist Visiting Fellowship, NOAA, Boulder, 2016
• NERC Independent Research Fellow, 2015-20
• University Academic Fellow, 2015-17
• Junior Research Fellow, St Catharine's College, Cambridge, 2013-15
• AXA Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Cambridge, 2013-15

Leadership:

• Director, Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science, U. Leeds (2020-24)
• Co-chair, World Climate Reseach Programme APARC core project (2022-)
• Co-chair, WCRP/SPARC Activity on Atmospheric Temperature Change and their Drivers (2017-)
• Member, Steering committee AerChemMIP for CMIP6 (2016-)
• Chair, Royal Meteorological Society Meetings and Events Committee (2017-2021)

Assessments:

• Lead Author of Working Group I of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report
• Review Editor, WMO/UNEP 2022 Ozone Assessment Report
• Lead Author, WMO/UNEP 2018 Ozone Assessment Report
• Review Editor, WMO/UNEP 2025 Assessment on the Impacts of the Hunga-Tonga volcanic eruption
• Member, External Review Panel NOAA Chemical Science Laboratory (US) (2021)

Community service:

• Editor, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (2023-)
• Co-Editor, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (2016-)
• Advisory Board, ARC Centre for Excellence in 21^st Century Weather
• Member, International Commission on the Middle Atmosphere (IAMAS) (2019-)
• Member, NERC Peer Review College (2020-)
• Co-chair, Scientific Organising Committee for SPARC 6^th General Assembly (2018)

Responsibilities

• Academic Lead for Physical Climate Change Group
• NERC PANORAMA DTP Atmosphere and Climate Theme Leader

Research interests

My research focuses on large-scale climate dynamics including processes affecting climate variability and change.

Research themes:

• Climate dynamics
• Climate projections
• Atmospheric circulation
• Atmosphere-ocean coupling
• Stratosphere-troposphere interactions
• Radiative transfer

Research groups:

• Physical Climate Change
• Dynamics and Clouds

Current projects:

• ExtAnt Drivers and Impacts of Extreme Weather Events in Antarctica (co-I, 2024-, NERC HT)
• TWISTA The Wide-ranging Impacts of STratospheric smoke Aerosols (co-I, 2024-, NERC PtF)
• Contrails from SAF and H2 combustion; from lab experiments to global mitigation policy, (co-I, 2024-, NERC JetZero)
• Contrail Assessment of Future Aircraft and Propulsion Architectures (co-I, 2024-, NERC JetZero) 
• Ambrosia (co-I, 2024-, H2020)
• Climate Ambassadors Programme (Yorkshire and Humber hub lead, 2024-, Department for Education)
• Philip Leverhulme Prize (PI, 2019-2025, Leverhulme Trust)

Past projects:

• StratClust (PI, 2023-24, NERC)
• CONSTRAIN (Co-I, 2019-2023, EU H2020)
• Understanding Composition-Climate Feedbacks in the Earth System (PI, 2015-20, NERC)
• SMURPHS (Co-I, 2015-2019, NERC)
• Developing actionable seasonal climate information for the wind and solar energy industry, (2017-21, NERC Industrial CASE PhD)
• Joint iCASP and UKCP18 demonstrator project (Co-I, 2017, NERC)
• Tropical Width Impacts on the STratosphere (TWIST), (2019-, International Space Science Institute)
• Tropical Width Diagnostics Intercomparison Project (TWDIP), (2017-2018, ISSI)
• Changing Width of the Tropical Belt, (2017-2019, US CLIVAR working group)
• Process Evaluation Group on the 'Tropical Tropopause Layer', (2015-18, Met Office)
• Scenarios of Future Solar Activity for Climate Modelling, (2015-16, ISSI)

Submitted:

• Anderson, A., J. Perez and A. C. Maycock, Minimal influence of future Arctic sea ice loss on North Atlantic jet stream morphology, WCD, https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2024-2506, revised.
• Norman, J. and A. C. Maycock, Skillful seasonal forecasts of wind generation in India during the western summer monsoon, Renewable Energy, submitted.
• Shen, T. and A. C. Maycock, Multi-year ENSO significantly elevates risk of persistent drought and wet conditions across the tropics, Communications Earth and Environment, under review.
• Trascasa-Castro, P., Y. Ruprich-Robert, A. C. Maycock, Future climate response to observed strong El Nino analogues, npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, submitted.
• Williams, R. S., A. C. Maycock, V. Charnay, J. Knight, I. Polichtchouk, Exceptionally strong polar vortex favoured intense UK and northern European storminess in February 2022, Communications Earth and Environment, in revision.

In preparation:

• Charnay, V., C. M. McKenna, A. C. Maycock, Uncertainty in projected sea surface temperature trends and North Pacific atmospheric circulation, Clim. Dyn., in prep.
• Maycock, A. C., C. M. McKenna, M. Priestley, J. Perez, J. F. Lockwood, The relationship of European extratropical cyclone hazards to large-scale modes of variability, in prep.
• Osmolska, W., C. Chemel, P. Field, A. C. Maycock, Global spatio-temporal identification of cold spells, in prep. 
• Vito Vacca, A., J. Perez, J. Casadevall, I. Davies, A. C. Maycock, Robust decrease in North Atlantic eddy driven jet variability under future global warming, in prep.
• Zhang, C., J. Zhang, A. C. Maycock, J. Screen, Barents Kara sea ice variability drives stronger tropospheric teleconnections after 2000 due to weakened stratospheric polar vortex, in prep.

• Contrail Assessment of Future Aircraft and Propulsion Architectures

Qualifications

• PhD, Atmosphere, Oceans and Climate, University of Reading, 2012
• MSc, Atmosphere, Oceans and Climate, University of Reading, 2008
• MPhys, Physics with Astrophysics, University of Manchester, 2006

Professional memberships

• Member, Royal Meteorological Society
• Member, European Geophysical Union

Student education

Current research group:

PDRAs

• Will Dow (ExtAnt, 2024-)
• Jannetta Richardson (JetZero, 2025-)
• Maria Chara Karypidou (Ambrosia, 2025-)

PhD students

• Luisa Alvires Podgurski (SENSE CDT; with BAS, co-supervisor), Using Earth-Observation data to classify Atmospheric Rivers and investigate their impacts on the stability of West Antarctic ice shelves, 2023-
• Yvonne Anderson (SENSE CDT; CASE with Met Office), Can air-sea coupling solve the signal-to-noise paradox in climate predictions?, 2023-
• Sara Bennie (PANORAMA DTP; CASE with Met Office), Human influence on climate variability, 2024-
• Eswyn Chen (CASE with Met Office), Robust future projections for Europe, 2021- 
• Arundhati Kalyan (PANORAMA DTP; CASE with Met Office), Decadal modulation of El Nino Southern Oscillation and its global impacts, 2022-
• Zhuo Li (Nanjing-Leeds Joint PhD), Dynamics and predictability of record breaking China heatwaves, 2024-
• Weronika Osmolska (PANORAMA DTP; CASE with Met Office, co-supervisor), Nature of cold-air outbreaks in Europe in a warming climate, 2022-
• Jacob Perez (EPSRC Fluids CDT; with Met Office), Regime behaviour of Earth’s jet streams and role for recent extreme weather, 2020-
• Paula Romero Jure (SENSE CDT; with NOC, co-supervisor), Ocean-atmosphere influences on tropical Pacific cloud feedbacks, 2023-
• Jinhao Wu, Machine Learning predictions for ENSO, 2024-

Academic visitors

• Chongyang Zhang, 2023-
• Tong Shen, 2023-

Past group members

Dr James Norman (PhD student 2017-2024; now Research Analyst at Global Energy Monitor); Andrea Vito Vacca (Visitor 2024, PhD student at Turin University); Grasiele Romanzini-Bezerra (RA 2023-24, now PhD student on EPSRC Fluids CDT); Dr Ryan Williams (StratClust project 2023-24; now PDRA at BAS); Dr Leo Saffin (PDRA Leeds 2023; now PDRA Reading Uni); Dr Paloma Trascasa Castro (PhD student Leeds 2019-23; now PDRA BSC); Dr Christine McKenna (PDRA Leeds 2019-2023; now Climate Scientist at JBA Risk); Mr Vincent Charnay (Research Assistant Leeds 2022-23; now PhD student at Victoria Uni Wellington NZ); Dr Will Dow (PhD Leeds 2023; now PDRA at Leeds); Prashant Mahendran (MRes Leeds 2022; now Climate Scientist UK Government); Auriel Franklin (MRes Leeds 2022); Dr Tom Wood (PhD Leeds 2021; now PDRA at Uni. Sheffield); Sachin Jugjeewon (MRes Leeds, 2021; now AI researcher at BT); Dr Andreas Chrysanthou (PhD Leeds, 2020; PDRA Leeds, 2020-21); Marjahn Finlayson (MRes Leeds, 2020, now Cape Eleuthera Institute); Ruari Phipps (BSc Leeds, 2020, now Data Analyst at Planet Mark); Dr Jake Smith (PhD Cambridge, 2019, now PDRA at Uni. Cambridge); David Feitschinger (MSc Leeds, 2018, now consultant at Arup); Ella Wingard (Summer intern, 2018, now consultant at Ricardo); Rohan Patel (BSc Leeds, 2018, now consultant at Ricardo); Dr Scott Yiu (PhD Cambridge, 2018, now data scientist at De Beers); Dr Michelle McCrystall (PhD Cambridge, 2017, now PDRA at Uni. Aukland); Tom Bartle (MRes Leeds, 2017, now Air Quality Consultant at Amey); Gibbon Masukwedza (MRes Leeds, 2016, now PDRA at Uni. Surrey); Tom Claxton (BA Cambridge, 2014, now lecturer at Lancaster Uni); Grainne McGread (BA Cambridge, 2013, now at Bank of England); Owain Rutherford (summer student Leeds, 2017, now Data Engineer at Uni. Stirling); Alice Drinkwater (summer student Leeds, 2016, now Associate Editor at Springer Nature); Digory Smith (BA Cambridge, 2014, now Data Scientist at Eedi).

Research groups and institutes

• Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science
• Climate Science and Impacts
• Atmospheric and Cloud Dynamics
• Atmospheric Chemistry and Aerosols

Current postgraduate researchers

• James Norman
• Eswyn Chen
• Miss Weronika Osmolska
• Arundhati Kalyan
• Yvonne Anderson
• Lic. Romero Jure
• Zhuo Li