Ben Webber

Ben Webber is an Associate Professor in Climate Science at the University of East Anglia's School of Environmental Sciences, affiliated with the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, and ClimateUEA. His research focuses on tropical climate dynamics, air-sea interaction, monsoons, ocean-ice interaction, and sea level rise mechanisms. He holds a PhD in climate dynamics from the University of East Anglia and has conducted extensive work on the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) and Antarctic ice shelf melt. He is a Co-Investigator on the FORSEA project, enhancing weather forecasting in Southeast Asia using high-resolution models. His recent projects include studying ocean dynamics in the Bay of Bengal and Antarctic polynyas. He has supervised projects funded by NERC, the Met Office, and UK-India collaborations.

Research Interests: Tropical climate systems, monsoon variability, ocean-atmosphere feedbacks, polar oceanography, and climate change impacts. Current work explores mechanisms like ocean Rossby waves and diurnal warm layers influencing MJO propagation and extreme weather events. He emphasizes improving coupled models and observational data integration through uncrewed systems.

Grants & Projects: Leads/co-leads 7 projects including FORSEA (2024-2026), STIMULATE (2019-2021), and collaborations with the Met Office. Focuses on model biases in the Indian Ocean and Antarctic ice shelf dynamics. Advises on PhD topics related to tropical climate, physical oceanography, and air-sea interaction.

Labs/Teams: Active in CRU, leading Antarctic and monsoon studies. Collaborates internationally on initiatives like BoBBLE (Bay of Bengal Boundary Layer Experiment) and iSTAR (Antarctic ice shelf melt).