Mike Hulme

(29 January 2010)  Read my thoughts on the future of climate policy in the light of Copenhagen, as interviewed for Nature Reports Climate Change.

(12 January)  Read my comments on the outcome of COP15 here at Seed Magazine.com, a US-based e-magazine reflecting on science, culture, innovation and society.   My argument is that we must use the 12 months until Mexico City to cut our losses and rethink a more pragmatic set of approaches for managing climate and its attendant risks.

I no longer work actively on the construction, evaluation and analysis of observational datasets, although much of my work in the 1990s was concerned with these aspects of climate change.  The datasets of global precipitation and the standard monthly climatologies for global land areas are maintained now by the Climatic Research Unit.  Enquiries should be directed either to David Lister (CRU) or else Mark New at the University of Oxford.

Climate datasets produced by the Climatic Research Unit can be found here, including the Hulme global gridded monthly precipitation dataset for land areas for the period 1900-1998.  For country-by-country historical and future climate data produced by Tim Mitchell and the Tyndall Centre, try here.

The longest UK climate data series is the Central England Temperature available from the Hadley Centre.

Access to worldwide individual station records of temperature, precipitation and some other variables can be gained through the National Climate Data Centre at Ashville (USA).

This page summarises my professional and personal affiliations, revealing some of the responsibilities and influences that shape my thinking.

Journals

I am Editor-in-Chief of the new Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIREs) Climate Change, launched January 2010.

From 2003 to 2009 I co-edited with Neil Adger and Kate Brown the journal Global Environmental Change.  I remain on the editorial board of GEC and am also on the editorial board of the journals Climate Policy and Environmental Science and Policy.  I have previously served as an editor for the journals Int. J. Climatology, Climate Research and Progress in Physical Geography.

Advisory Committees and Roles

I am an expert reviewer for 2009-2013 for the European Research Council, sitting on their Society and Environment panel and a member of the commissioning panel for the AHRC’s 2010-11 network programme ‘Arts and Humanities Approaches to Researching Environmental Change’.  I sit on the Advisory Board of the UK Climate Impacts Programme , am a senior advisor to the British Council and am a member of the advisory panel for the forthcoming (2011-16) London Science Museum exhibition on climate change.  I am a member of the Science and Democracy Network, which seeks to enhance the significance and quality of scholarship in science and technology studies (STS), and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).

Examples of earlier activities

I provided scientific input into the Conservative Party’s 2006 Quality of Life policy review.  I was on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research from 2002-07 and on the Advisory Board of the UK Energy Research Centre from 2004-08.  I was a Convening Lead Author for the scenarios chapter for the IPCC Third Assessment Report, as well as a Lead Author and Review Editor for other chapters.  I was also the Manager of the IPCC Data Distribution Centre between 1997 and 2002.  I was a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society from 1982 to 2002.

I am a signatory to the Oxford Declaration ‘Science and faith unite on biodiversity’ under the auspicies of the James Martin Institute, issued 7 December 2007. 

Personal Influences

I have been a member of the Labour Party since 1990.

I am an evangelical Christian and member of the Church of England, and my theology is broadly aligned with that espoused by Fulcrum, a movement seeking to act as a point of balance within the Anglican Church.  See here a Christian appreciation of Charles Darwin.

I am currently studying for a postgraduate Diploma in History at the University of East Anglia.

I am a member of the Society of Authors and of the Liverpool and SW Lancashire Family History Society.

I have been married since 1987 and have a 1992-born daughter.