Current Post: Reader

Room Number: CRU 1.04

Telephone: 01603 592089 (+44 1603 592089)

Fax: 01603 507784 (+44 1603 507784)

Email: t.osborn@uea.ac.uk

Publications: EPrints Digital Repository

Posts of Special Responsibility:

• UG Project Co-ordinator

Research Interests

Climatology; climate change; natural climate variability; climate modelling; palaeoclimatology; tree-rings; North Atlantic Oscillation; climate/weather extremes; precipitation extremes; drought; future climate scenarios.


Biography

I am an Academic Fellow at the Climatic Research Unit, within the School of Environmental Sciences at UEA, where I have worked since 1990 (initially as a Research Associate and then as a Senior Research Associate). My main research interests are concerned with identifying variations in climate (as observed, modelled and recorded in climate proxies) and understanding their causes (in terms of natural and anthropogenic climate processes). Most recently, I have investigated natural climate variability over the last 1000 years or so, using measurements of tree-rings and other climate "proxies" to estimate past changes in temperature across the Northern Hemisphere, together with climate model simulations to relate these changes to natural forcing factors such as variations in volcanic activity or solar irradiance. In 2004, I received the Hugh Robert Mill Award and Medal from the Royal Meteorological Society, in recognition of my research into the variability of daily rainfall characteristics -- including the identification of increased intensity of winter rainfall over the UK during the final decades of the 20th century. I have also investigated changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation, finding that greenhouse-gas-induced climate change is likely to be associated with a strengthening of the westerly circulation over the Atlantic and European region that may have begun to influence our climate already. Further information is available about the Climatic Research Unit and my research interests.
 

Significant Publications

• Osborn TJ and Briffa KR (2006) The spatial extent of 20th century warmth in the context of the last 1200 years. Science, 311, 841-844, doi: 10.1126/science.1120514.
• Osborn TJ, Raper SCB and Briffa KR (2006) Simulated climate change during the last 1000 years: comparing the ECHO-G general circulation model with the MAGICC simple climate model. Climate Dynamics, 27, 185-197, doi: 10.1007/s00382-006-0129-5.

• Rutherford SD, Mann ME, Osborn TJ, Bradley RS, Briffa KR, Hughes MK and Jones PD (2005) Proxy-based Northern Hemisphere surface temperature reconstructions: sensitivity to method, predictor network, target season and target domain. Journal of Climate, 18, 2308-2329, doi: 10.1175/JCLI3351.1.

• Osborn TJ (2004) Simulating the winter North Atlantic Oscillation: the roles of internal variability and greenhouse gas forcing. Climate Dynamics, 22, 605-623, doi: 10.1007/s00382-004-0405-1.

• Collins M, Osborn TJ, Tett SFB, Briffa KR and Schweingruber FH (2002) A comparison of the variability of a climate model with palaeo-temperature estimates from a network of tree-ring densities. Journal of Climate, 15, 1497-1515, doi: 10.1175/1520-0442(2002)015<1497:ACOTVO>2.0.CO;2.

• Osborn TJ and Hulme M (2002) Evidence for trends in heavy rainfall events over the United Kingdom. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London series A, 360, 1313-1325, doi: 10.1098/rsta.2002.1002.

Page last updated 25 October 2011