Lightning, Ozone and Climate Change

Date: Friday 8 November 2019

Time: 06:00 - 19:00

Location: 

University of Edinburgh
School of GeoSciences
The University of Edinburgh, Grant Institute
The Kings Buildings, West Mains Road
Edinburgh
EH9 3JW
UK

Email: 

scotland@rmets.org

SPEAKER | Dr Declan Finney, University of Leeds

ABSTRACT | Declan's project was to study lightning as a source of NOx, a precursor for tropospheric ozone. Tropospheric ozone is an important greenhouse gas which provided the motivation for studying this area. In addition, the reactions of NOx also impact on other important components of the atmosphere such as methane and OH. The diagnosis of lightning flash frequency in global models remains a challenge and this aspect was the initial focus of my work through the development of a new lightning parametrisation The parametrisation has been applied in a chemistry-climate model to understand the impacts of climate change on lightning and the consequences for atmospheric chemistry and radiative forcing.

BIOGRAPHY | Declan Finney undertook a masters degree in physics at the University of Bath before undertaking his doctorate at the University of Edinburgh. There his research project is the subject of the meeting's talk. Declan is now a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Leeds studying moist convective process in East Africa. He is the principal investigator in a project with the title 'Where East meets West: convection and rainfall over Ethiopia and South Sudan under climate change'.