Dr William Roberts

Assistant Professor

Department: Geography and Environmental Sciences

I've always been fascinated by the weather and climate. This ultimately led to an undergraduate degree in Meteorology and a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences. Along this journey I learnt that not only do we know quite a lot about how the climate changed in the past, but also, by using climate models, we can explain the physics behind these changes. This is now the focus of my research. In the past I've looked at how year to year variability in the tropical Pacific evolved over the last 10 thousand years, how collapsing ice sheets can alter the global climate, and how year to year variability in Antarctica can be changed by the size of ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere. Underpining all of these studies is a desire to not just document changes but to explain how and why the changes happen.

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Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Deciphering local and regional hydroclimate resolves contradicting evidence on the Asian monsoon evolution, Wolf, A., Ersek, V., Braun, T., French, A., McGee, D., Bernasconi, S., Skiba, V., Griffiths, M., Johnson, K., Fohlmeister, J., Breitenbach, S., Pausata, F., Tabor, C., Longman, J., Roberts, W., Chandan, D., Peltier, W., Salzmann, U., Limbert, D., Trinh, H., Trinh, A. 14 Sep 2023, In: Nature Communications
Seasonal temperatures in West Antarctica during the Holocene, Jones, T., Cuffey, K., Roberts, W., Markle, B., Steig, E., Stevens, C., Valdes, P., Fudge, T., Sigl, M., Hughes, A., Morris, V., Vaughn, B., Garland, J., Vinther, B., Rozmiarek, K., Brashear, C., White, J. 12 Jan 2023, In: Nature
The new Kr-86 excess ice core proxy for synoptic activity: West Antarctic storminess possibly linked to Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) movement through the last deglaciation, Buizert, C., Shackleton, S., Severinghaus, J., Roberts, W., Seltzer, A., Bereiter, B., Kawamura, K., Baggenstos, D., Orsi, A., Oyabu, I., Birner, B., Morgan, J., Brook, E., Etheridge, D., Thornton, D., Bertler, N., Pyne, R., Mulvaney, R., Mosley-Thompson, E., Neff, P., Petrenko, V. 15 Mar 2023, In: Climate of the Past
Termination 1 Millennial‐Scale Rainfall Events Over the Sunda Shelf, Buckingham, F., Carolin, S., Partin, J., Adkins, J., Cobb, K., Day, C., Ding, Q., He, C., Liu, Z., Otto‐Bliesner, B., Roberts, W., Lejau, S., Malang, J. 16 Mar 2022, In: Geophysical Research Letters
Two annual cycles of the Pacific cold tongue under orbital precession, Chiang, J., Atwood, A., Vimont, D., Nicknish, P., Roberts, W., Tabor, C., Broccoli, A. 10 Nov 2022, In: Nature
Antarctic surface temperature and elevation during the Last Glacial Maximum, Buizert, C., Fudge, T., Roberts, W., Steig, E., Sherriff-Tadano, S., Ritz, C., Lefebvre, E., Edwards, J., Kawamura, K., Oyabu, I., Motoyama, H., Kahle, E., Jones, T., Abe-Ouchi, A., Obase, T., Martín, C., Corr, H., Severinghaus, J., Beaudette, R., Epifanio, J., Brook, E., Martin, K., Chappellaz, J., Aoki, S., Nakazawa, T., Sowers, T., Alley, R., Ahn, J., Sigl, M., Severi, M., Dunbar, N., Svensson, A., Fegyveresi, J., He, C., Liu, Z., Zhu, J., Otto-Bliesner, B., Lipenkov, V., Kageyama, M., Schwander, J. 4 Jun 2021, In: Science
Simulation of the mid-Pliocene Warm Period using HadGEM3: Experimental design and results from model-model and model-data comparison, Williams, C., Sellar, A., Ren, X., Haywood, A., Hopcroft, P., Hunter, S., Roberts, W., Smith, R., Stone, E., Tindall, J., Lunt, D. 18 Oct 2021, In: Climate of the Past
Controls on the tropical response to abrupt climate changes, Roberts, W., Hopcroft, P. 28 Mar 2020, In: Geophysical Research Letters
Glacial and Holocene Middle East Stalagmite Proxies Interpreted Using GCM Simulations and Karst Environment Numerical Modeling, Carolin, S., Roberts, W., Andrews, J., Ersek, V., Henderson, G., Peckover, E., Rowe, P., Walker, R. 15 Dec 2020, AGU Fall Meeting 2020
Rainwater isotopes in central Vietnam controlled by two oceanic moisture sources and rainout effects, Wolf, A., Roberts, W., Ersek, V., Johnson, K., Griffiths, M. 1 Dec 2020, In: Scientific Reports

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