Dr Tom Howard
Tom's research looks at storm surges and long-term sea level change.
Areas of expertise
- Statistical modelling of extreme values.
- Numerical simulation of storm surges.
- Programming in R, Python, IDL, Fortran, Bash script.
- Development of analog models of Geophysical Fluid Dynamics.
- Teaching fundamentals of Geophysical Fluid Dynamics.
Current Activities
Tom's most high-profile work is his contribution to the UKCP09 and UKCP18 Marine Report.
Following the publication of the UKCP18 Marine Report, Tom's research has looked at
- evaluation of Hunter's allowance for UK tide gauges,
- use of simulated surges to help constrain surge extremes, and
- the impact of an Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation slowdown on UK surges (in preparation).
Previous work fed into the Thames Estuary 2100 project, and two lead-author publications (1 , 2) of the ice2sea project. Tom joined the Met Office Hadley Centre in 2005.
Tom has also worked in the Met Office College where he introduced turntable demonstrations in the teaching of Geophysical Fluid Dynamics.
Career Background
Tom holds an MSc with distinction in Computational Fluid Dynamics from the University of Leeds (1996) and a PhD (Atmospheric Boundary-Layer flow over Hills) from the University of Leeds (2001).
From 2002 to 2005 Tom worked in the Nowcasting group at the Met Office, developing the short-range forecast of wind speed over hills.
Educational videos
Tom's educational videos on the Met Office Youtube channel: