An external view of the Met Office building at night.

Dr Steve Derbyshire

Steve leads a research and development team working on flow over topography and related problems.

Areas of expertise

  • Moist convection in the atmosphere.

  • Boundary layer meteorology.

  • Large-eddy simulation and cloud resolving modelling.

Publications by Steve

Current activities

Steve has now returned to the scientific interest (which he has had since his PhD) in the impacts and representation of flow over topography.

The group has a wide brief, which includes involvement in projects on topics as varied as gravity-wave drag, fog, tropical cyclones and rainfall enhancement over hills.

Steve also leads a Process Evaluation Group on conservation properties in the UM.

Career background

Steve's PhD was a collaboration between Cambridge University and the Met Office (Julian Hunt and Paul Mason) on 'Modelling the Nocturnal Boundary Layer'. He used large-eddy simulation and theoretical analysis to develop and extend our understanding of the stably-stratified atmospheric boundary layer and its governing parameters.

Following his PhD, Steve led the rewriting of the Met Office Large Eddy Model so that it could be used for both boundary layer and deep convection problems.

Steve then spent six years (1991-7) conducting observationally based research at the Met Office Research Unit, Cardington, leading a number of experiments and detachments, including studying nocturnal flow over the Llanthony valley using a tethered-balloon-based measurement system.

In 1997 Steve returned to Met Office in Bracknell to take up responsibilities for moist atmospheric convection. The European Cloud-Systems (EUROCS) collaboration led to an influential paper on convection sensitivity to environmental humidity, based on intercomparison of Cloud-Resolving and Single-Column models.

From 2003-13 Steve led the team responsible for convection parametrization in the Unified Model and brought forward a number of incremental improvements, as well as testing new types of convection representation.

Steve has supervised PhD students on both boundary-layer and convection topics. Steve has also published work on fog.

External recognition

  • L.F Richardson prize winner 1992.

  • Meetings Secretary of the Royal Meteorological Society 1997-2003.

  • Editorial Board member of Boundary-Layer Meteorology 2002-2015.