The WeatherPod (19 – 24)

Paul has a number of years experience in meteorology and is now recognized nationally and internationally as an authority in the field of operational meteorology.

As Principal Fellow, Paul will ensure the Met Office’s professional and cultural approach to weather forecasting is globally recognized and to head a respected and valuable operational meteorological profession. He will spearhead the innovation and use of new scientific, technological, and operational techniques to deliver impact and benefit to a wide range of customers. Paul will also be the external figurehead for all things to do with the meteorological profession be this with stakeholders or key customers.

Paul was a Chief Forecaster in 2003 before being appointed as the Chief Hydrometeorologist and Deputy Head of the Flood Forecasting Center in 2008. From 2010, he created the Met Office’s Hazards Center and was the founder and inaugural Chair of the Natural Hazards Partnership (NHP) comprising a number of partner agencies, government departments and the Cabinet Office.

Paul was the lead author to WMO’s Multi-Hazard Impact Based Forecasting and Risk Based Warnings guidelines in his capacity as WMO’s IMPACT task team chair. Paul later became UK representative on the WMO Commission for Basic Systems (CBS) OPAG Management group for GDPFS ensuring the flow of data and advice is cascaded between global, regional, and national systems.

Tim is an eminent research scientist in weather and climate prediction and predictability. He has worked at the Met Office, at ECMWF and now is a Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford.

He is well known as an architect of ensemble weather prediction, but he is a polymath with interests across fundamental physics and maths. In his book ‘The Primacy of Doubt’ Tim discusses how incorporating uncertainty appropriately in the form of (random) noise into simulations and models of a range of natural phenomena, including weather and climate, is fundamental to improving the predictions of future behavior, i.e. the weather forecast.

Dr Shipra Jain (University of Edinburgh – climate science) is a physicist by training and particularly interested in how society can benefit from improved knowledge of extremes. She conducts research to advance the physical understanding and early prediction of weather and climate extremes. For the last five years, she is working on the development of physical-mathematical frameworks that can be used to quantify the chance of record-breaking rainfall for the next season to next decades.
Shipra has worked on diverse climate science-related topics including seasonal predictions, monsoon dynamics, stratospheric tropospheric processes, climate change and variability, climate extremes, and air pollution. She has collaborated with > 60 co-authors across different countries, organizations, and career stages. Very recently, she has joined the Centre for Climate Research Singapore, where she works on the seasonal and subseasonal forecasting and development of forecast products for Singapore and South-East Asia.

Dr Marisol Osman (research scientist at CIMA/University of Buenos Aires – Meteorology/climatology) is a postdoctoral researcher working at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Coming from a town of farmers, she was always interested in how climate variability affects agricultural activity. During her Diploma and PhD, which she completed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she worked on climate predictability and prediction on seasonal timescales over the Southern Hemisphere and South America. During her postdoc, she developed a probabilistic seasonal forecasting system for South America that is now used by the Argentinian Weather Service. As a researcher, she worked on interdisciplinary projects with anthropologists, economists as well as farmers to co-design and co-produce forecasting tools for the agricultural sector on subseasonal and seasonal timescales. Now at KIT she studies the predictability of different variables relevant for the energy sector on weather and subseasonal timescales.

About the guests

Haleh Kootval

Haleh joined the World Bank as a senior consulting specialist in meteorology and service delivery in April 2017. She has been working in countries in South Asia, Central and East Europe, the Caribbean and Africa on hydromet modernization projects, as project team leader for a modernization project to Government of Bangladesh and as a senior service delivery expert to the Government of Laos. Prior to that, Haleh worked in WMO as the Chief of the Public Weather Services Program, which she developed and led until her departure from WMO. She has co-authored and edited more than 30 publications on various aspects of service delivery with a focus on public weather services. Prior to joining WMO, Haleh served as the Head of the Brunei Meteorological Service and the Permanent Representative of Brunei with WMO, the President of WMO Regional Association for Asia and Southwest Pacific, and as a member of the WMO Executive Council. Haleh is a physics graduate of the Imperial College of London University and completed her post graduate studies in geophysics.

Gerald Fleming

Gerald is a graduate from UCD Physics in 1978 (B.Sc) and 1980 (M.Sc), Gerald Fleming worked 37 years for Met Éireann as a weather forecaster and weather broadcaster, leading the TV weather team and spending 9 years as Head of Forecasting. For WMO he chaired the Programme on Public Weather Services for 15 years. He now works as a meteorological consultant on a variety of WMO and World Bank development projects in South Asia and in Africa. He received the European Meteorological Society’s Silver Medal, their highest honour, in 2019.

Kevin O’Loughlin

Kevin is a meteorologist with extensive experience in Australia and internationally in operations, policy and leadership . He is a former State Director and national Deputy Director of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology responsible for the Bureau’s service delivery functions, including public weather services, severe weather services, aviation and defence services, and climate services. He also served for four years as CEO of an Australian/New Zealand wildfire research centre. Internationally, Kevin was involved as an expert in the development and implementation of the WMO Public Weather Services Programme from its inception in the mid 1990’s. He served as chairman of the Programme’s for several years. His other international experience includes a variety of consultancy tasks for WMO involving projects in developing countries in Africa, leadership training workshops, and official WMO guidance material.

About the guests

Haleh Kootval

Haleh joined the World Bank as a senior consulting specialist in meteorology and service delivery in April 2017. She has been working in countries in South Asia, Central and East Europe, the Caribbean and Africa on hydromet modernization projects, as project team leader for a modernization project to Government of Bangladesh and as a senior service delivery expert to the Government of Laos. Prior to that, Haleh worked in WMO as the Chief of the Public Weather Services Program, which she developed and led until her departure from WMO. She has co-authored and edited more than 30 publications on various aspects of service delivery with a focus on public weather services. Prior to joining WMO, Haleh served as the Head of the Brunei Meteorological Service and the Permanent Representative of Brunei with WMO, the President of WMO Regional Association for Asia and Southwest Pacific, and as a member of the WMO Executive Council. Haleh is a physics graduate of the Imperial College of London University and completed her post graduate studies in geophysics.

Gerald Fleming

Gerald is a graduate from UCD Physics in 1978 (B.Sc) and 1980 (M.Sc), Gerald Fleming worked 37 years for Met Éireann as a weather forecaster and weather broadcaster, leading the TV weather team and spending 9 years as Head of Forecasting. For WMO he chaired the Programme on Public Weather Services for 15 years. He now works as a meteorological consultant on a variety of WMO and World Bank development projects in South Asia and in Africa. He received the European Meteorological Society’s Silver Medal, their highest honour, in 2019.

Kevin O’Loughlin

Kevin is a meteorologist with extensive experience in Australia and internationally in operations, policy and leadership . He is a former State Director and national Deputy Director of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology responsible for the Bureau’s service delivery functions, including public weather services, severe weather services, aviation and defence services, and climate services. He also served for four years as CEO of an Australian/New Zealand wildfire research centre. Internationally, Kevin was involved as an expert in the development and implementation of the WMO Public Weather Services Programme from its inception in the mid 1990’s. He served as chairman of the Programme’s for several years. His other international experience includes a variety of consultancy tasks for WMO involving projects in developing countries in Africa, leadership training workshops, and official WMO guidance material.

bout the guests

Prof. Dale Barker, Director, Centre for Climate Change Research Singapore (CCRS)

As the Director of CCRS, Prof. Barker provides strategic direction, oversight of the centre’s weather/climate science activities, and engages with senior stakeholders in the national/international weather/climate community.

Prof. Barker has extensive experience in data assimilation research, use of observations in Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP), and regional climate reanalysis. He led the WRF data assimilation programme at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado (1999-2009). Between 2010 and 2018 he led the scientific development of the first EU-funded European regional reanalysis. In his previous role before joining CCRS, Prof. Barker was the Associate Director for Weather Science at the Met Office, leading 200 staff working in meteorological R&D and the research-to-operational transition of global/local NWP, ocean/wave forecasting, air quality, and atmospheric dispersion systems.

Prof. Barker is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (FRAS) and Royal Meteorological Society (FRMetS). He is a visiting professor at Reading University UK, an NCAR affiliate scientist, previous member of WMO/WWRP’s mesoscale weather forecasting WG, and chairs the scientific advisory committee for the new KIAPS Korean NWP system.

Dr Thomas Reindl, Deputy CEO, Solar Energy Research Institute Singapore (SERIS)

Dr Reindl is Deputy CEO of the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) and Principal Research Fellow (equivalent to Associate Professor) at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

He started with photovoltaics (PV) in 1992 at the SIEMENS Corporate R&D Labs. After holding several management positions at SIEMENS and running one of the leading German PV system integration companies (ILIOTEC Solar) as Chief Operating Officer and their spin-off company (PROACTIVE new energy) as Managing Director, he joined SERIS in 2010 and soon became Director of the Solar Energy System cluster. During his time at SERIS, he won public research grants in excess of SGD 20 million, founded 2 spin-off companies and authored strategic scientific papers such as the “PV Roadmap for Singapore”.

Dr. Reindl holds a Master in Chemistry, a Ph.D. in Natural Sciences and an MBA from INSEAD, all awarded with highest honours. His research interest are high-performance PV systems, techno-economic road-mapping and the reliable integration of renewable energies into energy supply systems.