Climate diagnostics and statistical climatology;
variability and changes in temperature, precipitation, climatic extremes
Constraining future climate change by estmating the magnitude of observed radiatively forced climate change,
use of palaeo proxy data to study climate variability and change during the last millennium.
Member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. I received a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award and am on the Thompson Reuters list of worlds most influential scientific minds 2014 (list of most highly cited scientists).
Contributor to Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC).
From 8/2009: Professor of Climate System Science, University of Edinburgh
8/2007-7/2009 Reader, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh; Adjunct Associate Professor, Duke University from 8/2008. Now adjunct professor.
9 /2001-7/2007: Associate Research Professor, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University, Durham, NC.
10/99 to 7/01: Associate Research Scientist, Dept. of Oceanography/Atmospheric Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX.
1992: Ph. D. in Mathematics (Numerical Fluid Dynamics), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany. Title of thesis: "Numerical solution of the compressible two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations in a time-dependent domain, using energy reducing boundary conditions" (magna cum laude).
I lead a European Advanced Grant ‘Transition into the Anthropocene (TITAN)’, 2013 to 2018, website to come soon.
I co-lead the Grand Challenge on Extremes, and I am involved with the European project Eucleia and led a NERC Project on the causes of change in mean and extreme European climate in the last five centuries, running HadCM3 with individual and combined forcings (solar, volcanic, greenhouse gases, land use, orbital, aerosols….) and applying detection and attribution methods, PDRA Andrew Schurer.
I led a workpackage on changes in heat waves and drought (WP6) of the EQUIP project, PDRA Helen Hanlon.
and am PI forWP 4 of the PAGODA project PDRA Debbie Polson.
I am involved with NCAS, and have collaborative projects with Simon Tett (RAPID; NCAS, European climate change) and Sandy Tudhope (ENSO changes in the Holocene).
I have organized the 11th IMSC in Edinburgh
and was PI for the International Detection and Attribution Group until 2010, and am now on its steering group.
Lehner, F., Schurer, A.P., Hegerl, G.C., Deser, C. and Frölicher, T.L., 2016. The importance of ENSO phase during volcanic eruptions for detection and attribution. Geophysical Research Letters, 43(6), pp.2851-2858.
Luterbacher, J., Werner, J.P., Smerdon, J.E., Fernández-Donado, L., González-Rouco, F.J., Barriopedro, D., Ljungqvist, F.C., Büntgen, U., Zorita, E., Wagner, S. and Esper, J., 2016. European summer temperatures since Roman times. Environmental Research Letters, 11(2), p.024001.
Hegerl, G., 2015, December. Contrasting impacts of local and non-local anthropogenic aerosols detected on 20th century monsoon precipitation over West Africa and South Asia. In 2015 AGU Fall Meeting. Agu.
Bothe, O., Evans, M., Donado, L.F., Bustamante, E.G., Gergis, J., Gonzalez-Rouco, J.F., Goosse, H., Hegerl, G., Hind, A., Jungclaus, J.H. and Kaufman, D., 2015. Continental-scale temperature variability in PMIP3 simulations and PAGES 2k regional temperature reconstructions over the past millennium. Climate of the Past, 11, pp.1673-1699.
Iles, C.E. and Hegerl, G.C., 2015. Systematic change in global patterns of streamflow following volcanic eruptions. Nature Geoscience, 8(11), pp.838-842.
