Dr Emily Shuckburgh

Contact details

Emily Shuckburgh

Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics
Centre for Mathematical Sciences
University of Cambridge,
Cambridge, CB3 0WA, UK

E.F.Shuckburgh@damtp.cam.ac.uk

Current positions

Research Interests

I am a fellow in applied mathematics at Darwin College, Cambridge.

I am also a lector at Trinity College, Cambridge, where I teach maths to the undergraduates.

I am Director of the DAMTP/NERC course in Geophysical and Environmental Fluid Dynamics held each year in the Centre for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge. >> click here for lecture notes.

I am also involved with setting up the new Institute for Aviation and the Environment in Cambridge.

>> click here for details of my background.

My research interests concern weather and climate. Understanding the processes acting in the atmosphere and oceans is important for forecasting the weather and for predicting future climate. International agreements in response to climate change are politically viable only with hard scientific evidence and predictive capability to support their objectives.

My own research focusses on understanding the dynamics of the atmosphere and oceans, and the distribution of chemicals such as ozone and pollutants.

>> click here for technical details of my research.

Recent papers

Introductory guides

d'Ovidio F., Legras B., Shuckburgh E.F., Local diagnostic of mixing and barrier modulation at the tropopause, submitted to Geophys. Res. Lett.

Haynes, P.H., Poet, D.A., Shuckburgh, E.F., Transport and mixing in kinematic and dynamically-consistent flows, submitted to J. Atmos. Sci.

Haynes, P.H., Poet, D.A., Shuckburgh, E.F., Transport and mixing in kinematic and dynamically-consistent flows, submitted to J. Atmos. Sci.

Marshall, J., Shuckburgh, E., Jones, H., Hill, C., Estimates and implications of surface eddy diffusivity in the southern ocean derived from tracer transport , J. Phys. Oceanog., 36, 1806-1821, 2006.

Shuckburgh, E. F., and Haynes, P. H., Diagnosing transport and mixing using a tracer-based coordinate system , Physics of Fluids, November 2003, Volume 15, Issue 11, pp. 3342-3357.

Haynes, P. H. and Shuckburgh, E. F., Effective diffusivity as a measure of atmospheric transport, Part I: stratosphere. J. Geophys. Res., 105, D18, 22,777-22,794, Sept 27 2000.

Haynes, P. H. and Shuckburgh, E. F., Effective diffusivity as a measure of atmospheric transport, Part II: troposphere and lower stratosphere. J. Geophys. Res., 105, D18, 22,795-22,810, Sept 27 2000.

Shuckburgh, E. F., et al., The influence of the quasi-biennial oscillation on isentropic transport and mixing in the tropics and subtropics. J. Geophys. Res., 106, D13, 14,327-14,338, 2001.

Lee, A. M., et al., The impact of the mixing properties within the Antarctic stratospheric vortex on ozone loss in spring. J. Geophys. Res., 106, D3, 3,203-3,211, Feb 16 2001.

Scott, R. T., et al., Stretching rates and equivalent length near the tropopause. J. Geophys. Res., 108, D13, 4394, July 12 2003.

Baldwin, M. P., et al., Weather from the Stratosphere? Science, Volume 301, Number 5631, Issue of 18 Jul 2003, pp. 317-319.

>> click here for more details

Ozone: Observations show that more than 50% of the ozone layer has been destroyed over the entire Antarctic region each spring in recent years, leading to significant increases in surface ultraviolet radiation. It is anticipated that with full compliance of the current international agreements the atmospheric abundances of ozone will slowly recover to their pre-1980 values over the next 50 years. >> click here for more details of ozone loss

Climate: The global-average surface temperature has increased during the 20th century and this warming is likely to have been the largest of any century during the past millennium, with the 1990s being the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year. It is likely that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases have contributed substantially to the observed warming over the last 50 years. Computer simulations estimate globally averaged surface air temperature increase from 1990 to 2100 of between 1.5 and 6 C. This increase would be without precedent during the last ten thousand years. >> click here for more details of climate change

Earth System: Earth system modelling encompasses all the processes that influence climate, from the atmosphere, oceans and ice caps through to interactions with forests and marine life. It deals with timescales from seasons to decades to several millennia, and addresses such issues as global warming, abrupt climate change, for example a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation, and the transition into and out of ice ages. >> click here for more details of Earth system modelling

Weather: Is the stratosphere, the atmospheric layer between ~10-50 km, important for predicting weather and climate change? The traditional view is that the stratosphere is a benign recipient of energy and waves from weather systems in the lower atmosphere, but recent evidence suggests otherwise. The stratosphere organises chaotic forcing from below, creating feedback processes that in turn alter weather patterns. >> click here for more details of stratospheric effects on weather and climate