At present, my main interest lies in the development of climate data-sets for use by researchers investigating the impacts of climate change. This interest has brought me involvement with a wide variety of impacts researchers around the world, some of whom I am actively engaged with on particular projects.

Two other interests are worth mentioning.

• The continual development of computing technologies is making possible new ways of doing science. I am interested in bringing such technologies into science in innovative ways. For an example, see the softIAM project. This interest has led to my being given the responsibility to consider how computing technologies might be deployed in the scientific work of the Tyndall Centre.
• As a Christian (see what I believe), I have particular views on how to address climate change. At present, this interest has found best expression in popular articles (see Papers).

Climate data-sets

The data-sets routinely produced by climatologists for their own use are usually unsuitable for immediate use in impacts research. However, impacts researchers themselves rarely have the expertise or the time to obtain the raw data-sets and manipulate them. Moreover, the lack of standardised climate data-sets causes problems when reviewers attempt to assess the results obtained by a number of different researchers.

There is, therefore, a need for standard climate data-sets for researchers to use. These data-sets must be accurate, versatile, comprehensible, comprehensive, and accessible. A considerable amount of expert knowledge is required to develop such data-sets, and the techniques that optimise their use. For example, among the elements involved are:

• both observed data from the past, and modelled data for the future;
• station data (points, irregular), gridded data (areas, regular), and regional data (areas, irregular);
• a wide variety of climatological variables;
• time scales varying from an instant (e.g. an observed wind speed) to many centuries (e.g. stabilisation of global temperature)

This area of interest affords considerable scope for both original research (see Papers), and the development of practical solutions to researchers' problems. Some of the data-sets that I have developed may be found under Data.

Projects

I have been engaged with a number of projects in recent years:

• softIAM is a Tyndall Centre project (2002-) to begin to develop the computing infrastructure (particularly the software) that is necessary to realise the Tyndall vision of an integrated assessment model (IAM). The Tyndall vision includes the adoption of modules from a wide variety of institutions, inside and outside of Tyndall, and the use of the IAM by the module owners. Therefore the model itself must be capable of distribution over the internet, using Grid technologies. My involvement is to bring together the computing and scientific aspects of the project. See the softIAM project page for more information.
• A Tyndall Centre project (2002-) led by Nigel Arnell is attempting to interface climate and impacts models in integrated assessment systems. My contribution will be to examine the possibility of extending the pattern scaling technique to scenarios involving the stabilisation of climate change.
• ATEAM is an EU 5th Framework project (2000-) to examine the effects of climate and land use change on ecosystem services and functions. My contribution is the development of a comprehensive set of high-resolution (10') gridded climate scenarios for Europe (see Data).
• The UK-CIP 2002 Climate Scenarios for the UK (2001-02) provide a state-of-the-art assessment of past, present, and future climate for the UK. This assessment includes high-resolution (5km) gridded climate scenarios for the UK (available from UK-CIP).
• There is a co-operative group on climate, health and ozone depletion (2000-), between the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. My role is as climate consultant and data provider.