Adam A. Scaife is a British physicist and head of long range prediction at the

Met Office The Met Office, until November 2000 officially the Meteorological Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather and climate service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and ...

. He is also a professor at

Exeter University The University of Exeter is a research university in the West Country of England, with its main campus in Exeter, Devon. Its predecessor institutions, St Luke's College, Exeter School of Science, Exeter School of Art, and the Camborne School o ...

. Scaife carries out research into long range weather forecasting and computer modelling of the climate and has published over 300 peer reviewed studies on atmospheric dynamics,

computer modelling Computer simulation is the running of a mathematical model on a computer, the model being designed to represent the behaviour of, or the outcome of, a real-world or physical system. The reliability of some mathematical models can be determin ...

and

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteoro ...

as well as popular science and academic books on meteorology.

Career

Scaife studied Natural Sciences (Physics) at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

(1988–1991), Environmental Science at Surrey University (1991–1992) and was awarded a PhD in Meteorology from

Reading University The University of Reading is a public research university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as the University Extension College, Reading, an extension college of Christchurch College, Oxford, and became University College, ...

(1999, academic advisor Prof Ian N James). He joined the Met Office in 1992 where he worked on climate dynamics and the development of improved computer models of the climate. He also joined Exeter University as Professor in Applied Maths in 2017. Many of his studies show how predictable factors affect

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloud cover, cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmo ...

from months to decades ahead. Since 2003 he has led teams of scientists in the

Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research The Met Office Hadley Centre — named in honour of George Hadley — is one of the United Kingdom's leading centres for the study of scientific issues associated with climate change. It is part of, and based at the headquarters of the Met O ...

, working on climate modeling and long range weather prediction. He now leads research and production of monthly, seasonal and decadal predictions at the Met Office. Scaife and his team have made recent advances in long range weather forecasting and have uncovered the paradox that current climate models are better at predicting the real world than they are at predicting themselves. Scaife's recent research demonstrates a link between year to year climate predictions, subtle changes in the rotation rate of the Earth and hence the length of day. Scaife was co-chair of the

World Meteorological Organisation The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. The WMO originated from the Interna ...

's Working Group on Seasonal to Interannual Prediction and served as a member of the scientific steering group of the

World Climate Research Programme The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) is an international programme that helps to coordinate global climate research. The WCRP was established in 1980, under the joint sponsorship of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Inte ...

's core project on the stratosphere and its role in climate. He is a fellow of the

Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based not-for-profit learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, physics research, research and applied physics, application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide ...

and the

Royal Meteorological Society The Royal Meteorological Society is an organization that promotes academic and public engagement in weather and climate science. Fellows of the Society must possess relevant qualifications, but Members can be lay enthusiasts. It publishes vari ...

and co-led the World Meteorological Organisation's grand challenge on Near Term Climate Prediction. Scaife has also served as member of the Royal Meteorological Society climate communications group, regularly comments on extreme climate events, and is often involved in communicating

climate science Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "slope"; and , '' -logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. Climate concerns the atmospher ...

to the public .

Awards

* Japan Meteorological Society's 5th Ogura Lecture (2025) * Institute of Physics Edward Appleton Medal (2020) * Royal Meteorological Society's Buchan Prize (2019) * Copernicus Medal (2018) * American Geophysical Union ASCENT Award (2016) * Royal Meteorological Society's Adrian Gill Award (2014) * L.G. Groves Memorial prize (2013) * Lloyds Science of Risk Prize for Climate Science (2011)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scaife, Adam British meteorologists UK Met Office staff and researchers Academics of the University of Exeter 1970 births Living people Alumni of the University of Surrey English physicists Alumni of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge Alumni of the University of Reading