Michael P. Byrne

Dr. Michael P. Byrne is an Associate Professor at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of St Andrews, and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Group, University of Oxford. His research focuses on climate dynamics, monsoons, land-climate interactions, and the water cycle. He leads the Climate Dynamics Lab at St Andrews, exploring topics like cloud feedbacks, tropical climate change, and continental-ocean temperature contrasts.

He completed his PhD at MIT under Paul O’Gorman. His work bridges theory, models, and observations to address fundamental climate questions, including monsoon dynamics, intertropical convergence zone behavior, and extreme temperature amplification over tropical land. Key contributions include studies on ITCZ width impacts, elevation-dependent warming, and biases in precipitation projections.

• Education: PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (advisor: Paul O’Gorman)
• Research Highlights:
  • Cloud feedback mechanisms in tropical climates
  • Land-ocean warming contrasts and their societal impacts
  • ITCZ dynamics and global climate modeling
• Awards: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship (Oxford)
• Labs/Teams: Climate Dynamics Lab (St Andrews), ITCZ-MIP collaboration