Natalie Burls

My research efforts acknowledge that, to fully understand, model and predict changes in climate characteristics that have a large impact on society, a fully coupled ocean-atmosphere perspective is needed – one that accounts for changes in important variables such as the thermal structure of the slowly-adjusting ocean. Complementing observations with theory, I endeavor to accompany complex simulations of climate phenomena with simple models capturing the essential dynamics required to explain unanswered questions within climate science. Here are a few topics that I am currently working on:
Dynamical controls on tropical climate in a warmer world;
Simulating past warm climates of the Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene;
The links between Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and Atlantic Multidecadal Variability;
Inter-annual tropical climate variability from an ocean energetics perspective