Dr Gavin Esler, PhD
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My research interests centre around the large-scale atmospheric circulation, including the application of geophysical fluid dynamics to understanding observed weather patterns and pollutant transport. Typical examples under investigation include the low frequency variability of the tropospheric flow, such as atmospheric blocking events, the propagation of planetary-scale Rossby waves into the stratosphere where they `break' helping to maintain the wintertime polar vortex and thus the ozone hole, and the dynamics of baroclinic waves. These latter waves appear in surface pressure charts as high and low pressure systems, and their propagation and organisation influences mid-latitude weather patterns.

Another current interest is investigating how dependent atmospheric chemistry is on the details of the transport and mixing of its different constituents,

including pollutants emitted from the surface. As the chemistry system is nonlinear the quantity of reaction products (e.g. tropospheric ozone) formed from emitted pollutants may be sensitive to the way in which the polluted air is dispersed and mixed with background air. This has implications for the development of global chemical transport models.

This page was last modified on April 15, 2011 by Helen Higgins