Mr Daniel Williams (he/him)

I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate working with Cyril Morcrette and Jim Haywood as part of the project Quantifying and Reducing aviation Contrail radiative forcing (QR-CODE). QR-CODE forms part of a larger tranche of projects funded by NERC's Jet Zero programme, a series of projects investigating different ways of reducing the climate impacts of non-CO₂ effects (those not directly from fuel burning) by the aviation industry.  As part of my research I will be aiming to better understand the environmental conditions that lead to contrail formation (the white clouds that come out the back of a plane), with the ambition that by doing so we can reduce the impact they have on the environment through possible schemes for rerouting flights. Contrails are important to research since they contribute a net-warming to the climate system in cool, moist conditions where the contrail persists for a long time after formation.

Previously I was a PhD student investigating the climates and atmospheres of moist terrestrial (Earth-like) planets, under the supervision of Prof. Geoff Vallis, Dr. Will Seviour and Dr. Stephen Thomson. My research involved using 3D climate models such as Isca to understand cloudy aquaplanets along with the hydrological cycle and greenhouse effect of tidally locked planets.

Publications:

• Williams, D. A., Ji, X., Corlies, P., Lora, J. M. (2023) Clouds and Seasonality on Terrestrial Planets with Varying Rotation Rates, Astrophysial Journal ApJ (pdf)
• Morton, J. M. et al. (2023) Global Warming and Arctic Terns: Estimating Climate Change Impacts on the World's Longest Migration, Global Change BIology (pdf)

Background:

• Physics and Astrophysics MSci, University of Birmingham, 2019
• Applied Meteorology & Climatology MSc, University of Birmingham, 2020

Supervision Activities:

• Rui Xu (2024) - MSc Weather and Climate (co-supervised with Stephen Thomson)
• Brian Dodd (2022) - MSc Advanced Mathematics (co-supervised with Will Seviour)

Teaching Activities:

• NSC1002 - Natural Sciences: Mathematics & Computing
• NSC1004 - Natural Sciences: Experimental Science
• NSC2001 - Natural Sciences: Frontiers in Experimental Science

You can find me on twitter @meteo_dan