Mr Simon Bell

Profile

I joined Aston in September 2011 having just finished a year studying Meteorology and Climatology at the University of Birmingham. It was during my time at UoB that my interest in Meteorology grew and as such I was eager to apply my recently acquired knowledge to a PhD. Thankfully Aston University was offering a PhD in a particularly interesting field of Meteorology, looking at amateur observations, and as such I was incredibly pleased to be offered the PhD. 

Qualifications & Education

• B.Sc. with First Class Honours in Physical Geography, University of Sheffield, 2007 - 2010.
  
• M.Sc. with Distinction in Applied Meteorology and Climatology, University of Birmingham, 2010 - 2011.

Research interests

My PhD research focuses on the uncertainty associated with amateur surface meteorological observations. These observations include variables such as surface air temperature, precipitation, humidity and snow depth. The goal is to develop a Bayesian framework through which the uncertainty associated with these observations can be assessed. Quantifying the uncertainty is vital if the observations are to be assimilated into a numerical model used to forecast the upcoming weather or to give accurate site specific forecasts. For links to useful meteorological web-sites, click here.

My areas of interest are Meteorology, Climatology, Statistics and Probability (particularly Bayesian approaches).

My Research is supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and is being undertaken within the Non-linearity and Complexity Research Group at Aston. The research is of particular interest to the Met Office who also kindly support this project.

During my M.Sc. I also completed research on the Influence of Weather and Future Climate on Motorcycle Accidents in Great Britain.

Supervisor: Dr Dan Cornford

Associate Supervisor: Dr Lucy Bastin

External Supervisor: Mike Molyneux (Met Office)

Publications

Bell et al. 2013. The state of automated amateur weather observations. Weather. 68(2). 36-41.   

                                        
Click here to download a pdf of the poster I presented at the European Geophysical Union (2012) titled 'Uncertainty in User-Contributed Weather data'. The poster highlights some of the motivations for using amateur weather data as well as describing some of the factors which cause uncertainty in the data.