Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events

Our Research

The Lincoln Centre for Water and Planetary Health is involved in research on climate change and seasonal forecasting, investigating extreme weather events, their predictability, and whether they are becoming more frequent in a changing climate. Further work explores the effects of global warming on the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets.

Seasonal Forecasting

Recent winters have been mild and wet but also had some extreme cold events. If seasonal weather is predictable in advance, there would be great benefits to society. To date there is little predictability for summer in weather forecasting models and we are working towards solving this problem.

Arctic Mid-latitude Linkages

The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on earth, a phenomenon known as Arctic Amplification. This is thought to have an impact on mid-latitude weather via changes in the jet stream. Lincoln Centre for Water and Planetary Health is actively engaged with international researchers, in order to establish the nature of these links and any impact on extreme weather events and to understand their societal implications.

Ice Sheets and Global Warming

We are investigating the effects of limiting global warming to 1.5°C by 2100 on the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Results from computer simulations are used to establish the sensitivity of ice sheets to climate change. This work will help to inform estimates of future sea-level rise.


Key Personnel and Expertise:

Professor Edward Hanna - Climatology and ice sheet mass balance

Publications (with LCWPH affiliation)

Team Members  Publications 
Edward Hanna 

Verland, J., R. Hall, E. Hanna, A. Karpechko, T. Vihma, M. Wang, X. Zhang (2020) The polar vortex and extreme weather: the Beast from the East in winter 2018. Atmosphere 11 (6), 664. 

  

Myers, S., S. Hemstock, E. Hanna (2020) Science, Faith and the Climate Crisis. Emerald Publishing Ltd. (Emerald Points Series) 

  

Hanna, E., F. Pattyn, F. Navarro, V. Favier, H. Golezer, M. van den Broeke, M. Vizcaino, P.L. Whitehouse, C. Ritz, K. Bulthuis, B. Smith (2020) Mass balance of the ice sheets and glaciers – Progress since AR5 and challenges. Earth Science Reviews 201, 102976. 

  

Vihma, T., R. Graversen, L. Chen, D. Handorf, N. Skific, J.A. Francis, N. Tyrrell, R. Hall, E. Hanna, P. Uotila, K. Dethloff, A.Y. Karpechko, H. Björnsson, J.E. Overland (2020) Effects of the tropospheric large‐scale circulation on European winter temperatures during the period of amplified Arctic warming. International Journal of Climatology 40, 509-529. 

 

IMBIE2 Team (A. Shepherd et al. including E. Hanna) (2019) Mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet from 1992 to 2018. Nature 579, 233-239. 

  

Hall, R.J., H.-L.Wei, E. Hanna (2019) Complex systems modelling for statistical forecasting of winter North Atlantic atmospheric variability: a new approach. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 145, 2568-2585. 

  

Pattyn, F., C. Ritz, E. Hanna, X. Asay-Davis, R. DeConto, G. Durand, L. Favier, X. Fettweis, H. Goelzer, N.R. Golledge, P. Kuipers Munneke, J.T.M. Lenaerts, S. Nowicki, A.J. Payne, A. Robinson, H. Seroussi, L.D. Trusel, M. van den Broeke (2018) The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets under 1.5C global warming. Nature Climate Change 12, 1053-1061. 

  

Hanna, E, X. Fettweis, R.J. Hall (2018) Recent changes in summer Greenland blocking captured by none of the CMIP5 models. The Cryosphere 12, 3287-3292. 

  

Hanna, E., R.J. Hall, T.E. Cropper, T.J. Ballinger, L. Wake, T. Mote, J. Cappelen (2018) Greenland blocking index daily series 1851-2015: analysis of changes in extremes and links with North Atlantic and UK climate variability and change. International Journal of Climatology 38, 3456-3564. 

  

Hall, R.J., E. Hanna (2018) North Atlantic circulation indices: links with summer and winter UK temperature and precipitation and implications for seasonal forecasting. International Journal of Climatology, 38 (S1): e660-e677.

Kristen Beck 

Beck, Kristen, Fletcher, Michael-Shawn, Gadd, Patricia, Heijnis, Henk, Saunders, Krystyna and Zawadzki, Atun (2019) The long-term impacts of climate and fire on catchment processes and aquatic ecosystem response in Tasmania, Australia. Quaternary Science Reviews, 221 . p. 105892. ISSN 0277-3791 

 

Fletcher, M.-S., Bowman, D.M.J.S., Whitlock, C., Mariani, M., Beck, K.K., Stahle, L., Hopf, F., Benson, A., Hall, T., Heijnis, H., & Zawadki, A. (accepted) The influence of climatic change, fire and species invasion on a southern temperate rainforest system over the past 18,000 years. Quaternary Science Reviews 

Matthew Hannaford  Nash, D.J. and Hannaford, M.J. (2020). Historical climatology in Africa: A state of the art. PAGES Magazine 28(2): 42-43. doi: 10.22498/pages.28.2.42. 
Andrew Kythreotis  

Kythreotis, AP & Mercer, TG (2020)Chapter 12Collaborative Education as a new urban civil politics of climate change. In Castán Broto, V, Robin, E & While, A (Eds.) Climate urbanism: towards a critical research agenda, Palgrave Macmillan, London. 

 

Kythreotis, AP, Mercer, TG, Jonas, AEG & Marsden, TK (2020). Rethinking urban adaptation as a scalar geopolitics of climate governance: climate policy in the devolved territories of the United Kingdom Territory, Politics and Governance. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2020.1837220  

 

Mercer, TG and Kythreotis, AP (2020). Towards Citizen Governance for Climate Change Education and Justice: A Science–Policy Perspective,  Myers, S, Hemstock, S & Hanna, E (Ed.) Science, Faith and the Climate Crisis, Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 79-92. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83982-984-020201008 

 
Theresa Mercer  

Kythreotis, AP & Mercer, TG (2020)Chapter 12Collaborative Education as a new urban civil politics of climate change. In Castán Broto, V, Robin, E & While, A (Eds.) Climate urbanism: towards a critical research agenda, Palgrave Macmillan, London. 

 

Kythreotis, AP, Mercer, TG, Jonas, AEG & Marsden, TK (2020). Rethinking urban adaptation as a scalar geopolitics of climate governance: climate policy in the devolved territories of the United Kingdom Territory, Politics and Governance. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2020.1837220  

 

Mercer, TG and Kythreotis, AP (2020). Towards Citizen Governance for Climate Change Education and Justice: A Science–Policy Perspective,  Myers, S, Hemstock, S & Hanna, E (Ed.) Science, Faith and the Climate Crisis, Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 79-92. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83982-984-020201008 

 

 
Mark Macklin  

Smith, M.W., Willis, T., Alfieri, L., James, W.H.M., Trigg, M.A., Yamazaki, D., Hardy, A.J., Bisselink, B., De Roo, A., Macklin, M.G. and Thomas, C.J., 2020. Incorporating hydrology into climate suitability models changes projections of malaria transmission in Africa. Nature communications11(1), pp.1-9. 

 

Fuller, I.C., Macklin, M.G., Toonen, W.H., Turner, J. and Norton, K., 2019. A 2000 year record of palaeofloods in a volcanically-reset catchment: Whanganui River, New Zealand. Global and Planetary Change181, p.102981. 

 

Harrison, S., Mighall, T., Stainforth, D.A., Allen, P., Macklin, M., Anderson, E., Knight, J., Mauquoy, D., Passmore, D., Rea, B. and Spagnolo, M., 2019. Uncertainty in geomorphological responses to climate change. Climatic Change156(1-2), pp.69-86. 

 

Panyushkina, I.P., Macklin, M.G., Toonen, W.H. and Meko, D.M., 2019. Water supply and ancient society in the Lake Balkhash Basin: Runoff variability along the historical Silk Road. In Socio-Environmental Dynamics along the Historical Silk Road (pp. 379-410). Springer, Cham. 

 

Panyushkina, I.P., Meko, D.M., Macklin, M.G., Toonen, W.H.J., Mukhamаdiev, N.S., Konovalov, V.G., Ashikbaev, N.Z. and Sagitov, A.O., 2018. Runoff variations in Lake Balkhash Basin, Central Asia, 1779–2015, inferred from tree rings. Climate Dynamics51(7-8), pp.3161-3177. 

 

Mills, S., Mirea, P., Pannett, A. and Macklin, M., 2018. Early to mid-Holocene human-river interactions in the Lower Danube Valley: new research at Poiana (Teleorman County). Buletinul Muzeului Judeţean Teleorman10, pp.27-43. 

 

Fuller, I.C., Macklin, M.G., Toonen, W.H. and Holt, K.A., 2018. Storm-generated Holocene and historical floods in the Manawatu River, New Zealand. Geomorphology310, pp.102-124. 

 

Daley, J., Croke, J., Thompson, C., Cohen, T., Macklin, M. and Sharma, A., 2017. Late Quaternary channel and floodplain formation in a partly confined subtropical river, eastern Australia. Journal of Quaternary Science32(6), pp.729-743. 

 

Woodward, J.C., Macklin, M.G., Spencer, N., Binder, M., Dalton, M., Hay, S. and Hardy, A., 2017. Living with a changing river and desert landscape at Amara West. Nubia in the New Kingdom: Lived experience, pharaonic control and indigenous traditions, pp.227-257. 

 

Mills, S., Macklin, M. and Mirea, P., 2017. Encounters in the watery realm: early to mid-Holocene geochronologies of Lower Danube human-river interactions. In The Neolithic of Europe: papers in honour of Alasdair Whittle (pp. 35-46). Oxbow Books. 

 

Spencer, T., Naylor, L., Lane, S., Darby, S., Macklin, M., Magilligan, F. and Möller, I., 2017. Stormy geomorphology: an introduction to the Special Issue. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms42(1), pp.238-241. 

 

Naylor, L.A., Spencer, T., Lane, S.N., Darby, S.E., Magilligan, F.J., Macklin, M.G. and Möller, I., 2017. Stormy geomorphology: geomorphic contributions in an age of climate extremes. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms42(1), pp.166-190. 

 

 

Projects

 

Team Member  Projects (including title, period and funder) 
Edward Hanna  Northwest European Seasonal Weather Prediction from Complex Systems Modelling. Awarded £650,032 by NERC, 2020-2023 
Kristen Beck 

Fire Impacts on Peatland Carbon Sequestration. Awarded £2351.68 by SoG SEED CORN fund in 2020 

Disentangling Southern Hemisphere climate and environmental interactions of the late Pleistocene Funded by National Environmental Isotope Facility, Natural Environment Research Council in 2020 (NEIF # 2229.0320, £10,500) 

Mark Macklin  Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (New Zealand) Endeavour Fund award to Professor I C Fuller, Professor M G Macklin and Dr ST McColl for “Smarter Targeting of Erosion” $750,000 (New Zealand Dollars), 2018-2023. 

Contact Us

Department of Geography, College of Health and Science
University of Lincoln, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7DW

Tel: +44(0)1522 835820