Penny Holliday

Prof. Penny Holliday is Chief Scientific Officer at the UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and an Honorary Professorial Fellow (Research) at the University of Southampton. With more than 30 years of experience she has led national and international programmes on North Atlantic circulation and climate, including the NERC AtlantiS, OSNAP and CLASS National Capability science programmes, and has served as Chief Scientist on multiple research expeditions.

Education:

• PhD in Oceanography, University of Liverpool, 2002

Research interests centre on understanding the physical processes driving the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), water-mass transformation and variability in the subpolar North Atlantic, and how changes in ocean circulation affect climate and society. Her work integrates sustained ocean observations from moorings, gliders and shipboard measurements with modelling to quantify transports of heat, freshwater, carbon and nutrients.

Recent publications demonstrate a focus on:

• Continuous observational records of the North Atlantic Current and Deep Western Boundary Current transports;
• Role of the Irminger Gyre and convection in driving overturning variability;
• Impacts of Arctic freshwater export on North Atlantic circulation and European weather;
• Biogeochemical fluxes and climate-relevant tracers in the subpolar gyre;
• Detection and attribution of decadal change and potential tipping points in AMOC.

Scientific awards and honours include the prestigious Challenger Medal 2024 from the Challenger Society for Marine Science, the Society for Underwater Technology Oceanography Award 2019, and appointment as Honorary Professorial Fellow (Research) at the University of Southampton in 2019.

She currently holds advisory roles on the OFI Excellence Impact and Engagement Committee, the AWI Scientific Review Panel, and the Instituto Español de Oceanografía Scientific Advisory Board, and has previously chaired or served on numerous international science steering groups including GOOS, AtlantOS, ASOF, GO-SHIP, ICES and EuroGOOS committees.

Prof. Holliday leads the ongoing AtlantiS programme (2024-2029) and is NOC Principal Investigator for the Ellett Array time-series west of the UK, while continuing to coordinate UK contributions to the OSNAP and SNAP-DRAGON projects aimed at quantifying and predicting subpolar gyre and overturning variability.