An external view of the Met Office building at night.

Dr Steve Rumbold

Steve simulates global sources, sinks and transport of anthropogenic aerosol and investigates the associated impact on air quality and climate.

Areas of expertise

  • modelling transport of aerosol using the Met Office Unified Model;

  • aerosol emission, deposition, chemistry and transport;

  • radiative transfer and aerosol optical properties;

  • stratospheric temperature and ozone trends;

  • effect of the 11-year solar cycle (sunspots) on the stratosphere.

Publications by Steve Rumbold

Current activities

Steve is a National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) research scientist working as part of the UK Earth System Model (UKESM) core team.

Prior activities

Steve was a Met Office scientist involved in the international multi-institution Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Model Intercomparison Project (ACCMIP ).  This project aimed to expand upon CMIP5 by providing more a detailed analysis of radiative forcing and a wider range of chemistry diagnostics for short lived species.  For this, Steve contributed results from experiments conducted using Met Office climate prediction model: HadGEM2 family and contributed to subsequent scientific publications.

Steve also determined the level of present day aerosol transported between different regions in the Northern Hemisphere and different countries within the Europe. The effect that external regions have on UK and European background aerosol levels formed part of theDEFRA contract.

Career background

Steve joined the Met Office in April 2009. Prior to this, Steve was a postdoctoral research assistant at the University of Reading where he developed a sophisticated radiation code to study aerosol optical properties. At Reading, Steve also completed a PhD on stratospheric temperature trends and the effect of the 11-year solar cycle. In 2003 Steve obtained a 1st Class MPhys degree in Astrophysics from Cardiff University.