Lucy Neal
Lucy develops and uses the AQUM model for forecasting regional air quality.
Areas of expertise
- Air quality forecasting
- Atmospheric dispersion modelling
- Lagrangian dispersion models
- Atmospheric pollutant emissions data
Current activities
Lucy works within the Air quality and composition group, which is part of the Atmospheric Dispersion Group.
Lucy is responsible for developing the Met Office's operational air quality forecast system (Air Quality in the Unified Model). This is a regional air quality configuration of the Met Office Numerical Weather Prediction models and runs each day to produce forecasts of the Air pollution out to five days ahead.
Lucy works on verifying the performance of against observations, both in near-real time and for case study simulations, as well as conducting work to improve the forecasts by incorporating recent observations.
Lucy also develops air quality emissions ancillaries for both the Met Office Dispersion Model model and , incorporating EMEP European emissions, NAEI UK emissions, Entec shipping emissions and biogenic emissions.
Career background
Lucy graduated from Warwick University in 2007 with a BSc in Mathematics before completing an MSc in Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate at Reading University. Lucy was awarded the MSc dissertation prize for her dissertation which used Met Office Dispersion Model to examine the impact on tracer dispersion of high temporal and spatial resolution meteorology during the ETEX project.
Lucy then joined the Met Office in September 2008, as part of the Atmospheric Dispersion Group.