Dr Matthew Priestley

I am a Research Fellow based within Exeter Climate Systems and funded by the Willis Research Network. My current research is on European winter storms, with focus on constructing and evaluating present day risk. A further goal is on understanding the impact of climate change on future risk estimates.

Since June 2023 I have been working with the Royal Meteorological Society as their Science Engagement Fellow for the Insurance Industry. This role involves driving engagement between academia and the insurance sector, providing resources, understanding collaboration, and increasing awareness of research being undertaken by both sectors. Please get in touch via email for more information or visit https://www.rmets.org/special-interest-groups/insurance.

My main research interests are:

• Extratropical cyclones and structures
• Storm tracks
• Extreme wind and precipitation events
• Model representation and biases
• Understanding and modelling historical and future variability in extreme events

I was previously working on the Emergence Project where I investigated the representation of storm tracks and extratropical cyclones in different groups of CMIP6 models. Recently, we updated future projections of extratropical cyclones and this research fed into the latest assessment report from the IPCC (AR6).

My CMIP6 storm track data of the historical period and future projections is available upon request. You can find details of available data through the link in the sidebar.

I was previously at the University of Reading and my PhD research focussed on the clustering of extratropical cyclones over the North Atlantic and western Europe, and the role of these events on windstorm losses across Europe. A central aim of this work was to investigate the dynamical drivers of these events and the relative roles of large-scale atmospheric features and secondary cyclogenesis.

If you wish to discuss any research ideas with me please email me - m.priestley@exeter.ac.uk.

My Google Scholar profile is available here.

You can follow me on Twitter @_mattpriestley.