Bridging the gap between numerical forecast evaluation and value to decision makers in climate sensitive sectors

Background
The Research Council UK funded Global Challenges Research Fund African Science for Weather Information and Forecasting Techniques (GCRF African SWIFT) project is a £7.8 million programme of research that seeks to develop sustainable African weather forecasting capability to enhance the livelihood of African populations and improve the economies of their countries. With a focus on West Africa, this PhD project will bridge the research gap research between numerical forecast evaluation and evaluation of the usefulness of forecast information to decision makers for building resilience in the agricultural, water and energy sectors.

Skilful weather forecasts of convective rainfall has long been a major challenge for atmospheric researchers and operational forecast centres across the world. Recent model developments have allowed new information at a higher resolution and of a probabilistic nature to become available for weather forecasting timescales. However, it remains unclear what the value of this new information is to weather forecasters, decision makers in climate sensitive sectors such as water, agriculture, energy and disaster risk reduction sector. New research is needed to establish strategies for communicating the skill and reliability of state-of-the-art forecast information, and evaluating whether they have the potential to provide greater socio-economic value than more standard forecast methods. This project will involve close collaboration with African organisations such as the National Meteorological Services.

Key objectives:
• For weather events identified as important to decision making processes in climate sensitive sectors, quantitatively evaluate the skill of weather forecast information using new and existing evaluation metrics.
• Identify the extent to which skilful weather forecasts provide added value in decision making.
• Develop new methods for evaluating the usefulness of forecast information at different levels of skills of reliability for decision making.

Training opportunities
• Integration into a large interdisciplinary project and the opportunity to take part in or assist in delivering training courses, summer schools and forecasting workshops.
• Training in tropical dynamical meteorology and weather forecast evaluation
• High level training in the computer programming language Python
• Familiarisation with the use of atmospheric datasets, such as satellite retrievals of rainfall, reanalysis data and weather station data.
• Training in social science research methodologies, such as the collection and analysis of interview and survey data
• Research skills such as literature reviews, oral communication skills and the development of research hypotheses
• Opportunity to participate in a research visit to KNUST
• Opportunity for an extended research visit to the UK Met Office
• Opportunities to attend national and international meetings and conferences
• Experience of a wide range of environmental and earth science research within the School of Earth and Environment


Eligibility/Candidate Profile
Applicants must:
• currently be ordinarily resident in an African country
• hold a Masters degree in a relevant discipline such as meteorology, climate science, environmental science, geography, physics or mathematics
• have an interest in combining approaches from the physical and social sciences to increase the socio-economic benefits of weather forecasting services for sub-Saharan Africa

Ideally applicants will have:
• experience in climate and weather research, weather forecasting, or climate services
• experience of engaging with decision-makers
• familiarity with the existing literature on forecast evaluation and communication