An external view of the Met Office building at night.

Dr Matt Palmer

Matt leads sea level and ocean heat content research at the Met Office Hadley Centre

Areas of expertise

  • Sea level and ocean climate change.

  • Ocean circulation and climate variability.

  • Subsurface ocean observations.

  • Detection and attribution.

Publications by Matt

Current activities

The work of Matt's team includes investigating the predictability of regional sea level, assembling sea level projections and understanding the role of ocean circulation and heat uptake processes in shaping climate variability and change.  This research is a mixture of underpinning research under the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme and commercial work done in partnership with Applied science. Matt and his team have strong collaborative links with UK researchers (Universities of Reading, Oxford, and National Oceanography Centre, Southampton) and also the wider research community through international working groups (CLIVAR GSOP, CONCEPT-HEAT, IQuOD).

Career background

Before joining the Met Office, Matt completed a PhD at the University of Southampton and National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, where he combined observations with a regional model of the Indian Ocean in order to study the deep overturning circulation. As part of this work, Matt participated in a hydrographic research cruise at 32°S in the Indian Ocean, where he gained 'hands on' experience of collecting ocean observations and deploying Argo floats.

Since joining the Met Office in 2005, Matt's work has focused on understanding ocean heat content change using both observational analyses and climate model simulations. He spent several years leading the ocean model evaluation group and coordinating the wider assessment of Met Office coupled model systems. More recently, he has moved to leadership of sea level research in the Met Office Hadley Centre, which has natural linkages to his previous work with ocean circulation and heat content.

External recognition

  • Co-chair of the CLIVAR Global Synthesis and Observations Panel (GSOP)
  • Co-chair of the International Quality Controlled Ocean Database initiative (IQuOD)
  • Member of the CLIVAR CONCEPT-HEAT Scientific Steering Team
  • Principal Investigator on the NERC DEEP-C project
  • CSIRO/UTAS Distinguished Visiting Scientist 2014-2015