James Mitton

James is a Foundation Scientist in the Aviation Applications team, working on aviation turbulence and other hazards to the industry.

Areas of expertise

  • Fluid dynamics
  • Aviation

Current activities

James has recently completed work on the automated detection of cumulonimbus clouds around UK airfields. This included investigating the integration of Met Office UKV model data into the detection algorithm and also developing a machine learning model (a convolutional neural network) to improve the quality of detection. 

James is now working on Convectively Induced Turbulence (CIT) for the World Area Forecast System (WAFS) using both deterministic and ensemble data with the Graphical Turbulence Guidance (GTG) turbulence forecast model.

Career background

James joined the Met Office in September 2023. Prior to joining, he was employed in the mathematical modelling team at a manufacturing company, primarily carrying out Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling of glass flows in furnaces, in addition to other required mathematical modelling.

James graduated from the University of Bath in 2019 with a BSc (Hons) in Physics with Astrophysics. He then obtained an MSc in Gravity, Particles and Fields from the University of Nottingham in 2021, with a particular focus on gravity.