Professor Gregor C. Leckebusch PhD

Professor Gregor C. Leckebusch

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Professor of Meteorology and Climatology
Director of CENTA (NERC DTP)

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 41 45518
Email
g.c.leckebusch@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Science
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Professor Gregor Leckebusch is a leading expert in natural science research on meteorological and climatological extreme events and related impact assessments. He played a key role in multiple national and international interdisciplinary projects dedicated to natural variability of and anthropogenic changes in extremes and impacts. Focus of his actual research is a better understanding of physical processes in the coupled climate system in order to quantify related uncertainties from different sources.

Biography

Professor Gregor Leckebusch studied Meteorology at the University of Cologne (Germany), where he completed his PhD on meteorological diagnostics of polar ice cores by means of paleoclimate model simulations. He subsequently worked as a Postdoc to regional extreme event modelling and impact assessment. He acted as Associate Professor from 2004 to 2010 (Habilitation 2009) at Freie University of Berlin (Institute for Meteorology) and substituted the chair of Dynamical Meteorology at the University of Leipzig (2010/2011) before he joined the University of Birmingham in 2011. He is the Director of the CENTA NERC DTP consortium and since 2019 he is Professor of Meteorology and Climatology.

Teaching

Gregor’s Teaching activities are strongly linked to his research activities and cover modules in different programmes, from modules in Physical Geography (e.g., Techniques in Physical Geography - Energy Balance Model or the year-3 module on Weather, Climate and Society) at undergrad level (BSc) to modules at  Master level.  In Birmingham (MSc in Applied Meteorology and Climatology) he is leading 3 modules, including topics like “Meteorological Applications and Services” and “Physical Climatology”. His teaching experience includes modules on e.g., dynamical and synoptic meteorology, polar meteorology, general meteorology and climatology, weather prediction and impact assessment, and practical meteorological observation courses at different levels of complexity.

Postgraduate supervision

Dr Leckebusch offers a wide range of postgraduate supervision, spanning from pure meteorological topics (eg, studies to extreme wind storms) to impact research (eg, trends of forest fire under future climate conditions) and welcomes applications from potential doctoral researchers in his areas of interest.

Research

Professor Gregor C. Leckebusch is a leading expert in natural science research on meteorological and climatological extreme events and related impact assessments. He played a key role in multiple national and international interdisciplinary projects dedicated to natural variability of and anthropogenic changes in extremes and impacts. Focus of his actual research is a better understanding of physical processes in the coupled climate system in order to quantify related uncertainties from different sources.

Other activities


  • Member of the German Meteorological Society (DMG)
  • Member of the European Geosciences Union (EGU)
  • Member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU)
  • Member of the CLM user community
    (CLM = Climate version of the Lokal-Modell of the German Weather Service (DWD))
  • Head of working group “Evaluation” in the CLM community
  • Member of the COSMO-CLM Coordination committee
  • Assisting Chairman of the user group committee of the German High Performance Computing Centre for Climate- and Earth System Research (DKRZ) (2002 – 2004)
  • Geo.X - Coordinator for Freie Universität Berlin, Faculty of Geosciences (www.geo-x.net); Geo-Research cluster in the area Berlin-Brandenburg (2009-2010)
  • Member of the IMILAST- Coordination group (IMILAST-Project: Intercomparison of mid latitude storm diagnostics; http://www.proclim.ch/IMILAST/)
  • External expert consulter at University of Arba Minch (Ethiopia) to establish a new study programme (BSc, MSc) in the field of Meteorology and Hydrology in accordance with the European Bologna process at the Water Technology Institute, University of Arba Minch, Ethiopia. Collaboration with DAAD and GTZ (27.08.2008 – 25.09.2008)
  • Radiosonde campaign at Parakou (Benin, West-Africa) in the framework of the research initiative IMPETUS (Integrative Management Project for efficient and sustainable Use of freshwater in West-Africa) (12.07.2002 – 20.08.2002) 

Reviews

  • Peer reviews for scientific journals, e.g. J. Climate, Meteorol. Z., Climate Dynamics, Climatic Change, Climate Research, TellusA, NHESS, etc.
  • Referee for grant applications e.g. NERC (UK), BSF (USA), etc.
  • Referee for the IPCC Working Group II, Fourth Assessment Report Cross-chapter Case Study: The European 2003 heat wave.

Organisation of scientific sessions at international conferences and symposia

  • "Zugang zu meteorologischen Daten", internationale Fortbildungsveranstaltung und Podiumsdiskussion für den Zweigverein Rheinland der Deutschen Meteorologischen Gesellschaft. Köln, 1996.
  • "Employment Options for Professionals in Meteorology and Hydrology – Implications for Curriculum Development." Addis Ababa, 22.09.2008.
  • Convener of session "Mid-latitude Cyclones and Storms: Diagnostics of Observed and Future Trends, and related Impacts", "European Geosciences Union" General Assembly, Vienna, 2009; 2010, 2011, 2012.
  • Co-Convener of session "Urban Climate",11th EMS Annual Meeting; 10th European Conference on Applications of Meteorology (ECAM), 12 – 16 September 2011, Berlin, Germany.
  • Member of the Programme and Science Committee (PSC) of the 11th EMS Annual Meeting / 10th European Conference on Applications of Meteorology (ECAM), 12 – 16 September 2011, Berlin, Germany. 

Awards

  • The Gordon Manley Weather Prize of the Royal Meterological Society
    The Prize for 2008 is awarded to Professor Andreas Fink and meteorology colleagues at the Institute for Geophysics and Meteorology, Cologne, Germany. London, 18 June 2008

     “Andreas Fink and a variety of colleagues have CO-authored a wide range of case studies of extreme weather events over Europe that have been published in Weather since the mid 1990s. The subjects have ranged from the mid-latitude storms of January 1999 to the central European floods of 2002, the heat and drought of summer 2003 and Snow accumulation in winter 2005. Each of the resulting articles has been distinguished by a careful balance between comprehensive meteorological analysis of the causes and impacts of the weather events and a lucid and accessible written style. As such, these articles embody many of the aims of Weather.”

    Given under the seal of the society, 18th June 2008

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Ng, KS & Leckebusch, GC 2021, 'A new view on the risk of typhoon occurrence in the western North Pacific', Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 663-682. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-663-2021

Befort, D, Kruschke, T & Leckebusch, G 2020, 'Objective Identification of Potentially Damaging Tropical Cyclone over the Western North Pacific', Environmental Research Communications, vol. 2, no. 031005. <https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7620/ab7b35>

Befort, DJ, Kruschke, T & Leckebusch, GC 2020, 'Objective identification of potentially damaging tropical cyclones over the Western North Pacific', Environmental Research Communications, vol. 2, no. 3, 031005. https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7620/ab7b35

Angus, M & Leckebusch, GC 2020, 'On the Dependency of Atlantic Hurricane and European Windstorm Hazards', Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 47, no. 23, e2020GL090446. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL090446

Walz, M & Leckebusch, G 2019, 'Loss potentials based on an ensemble forecast: how likely are winter windstorm losses similar to 1990?', Atmospheric Science Letters, vol. 20, no. 4, e891. https://doi.org/10.1002/asl.891

De Luca, P, Harpham, C, Wilby, RL, Hillier, JK, Franzke, CLE & Leckebusch, GC 2019, 'Past and projected weather pattern persistence with associated multi-hazards in the British Isles', ATMOSPHERE, vol. 10, no. 10, 577. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10100577

Befort, DJ, Wild, S, Knight, JR, Lockwood, JF, Thornton, HE, Hermanson, L, Bett, PE, Weisheimer, A & Leckebusch, GC 2019, 'Seasonal forecast skill for extratropical cyclones and windstorms', Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, vol. 145, no. 718, pp. 92-104. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3406

Chen, W, Leckebusch, GC, Lu, Y, Sun, S & Duan, Y 2018, 'Hazard Footprint-Based Normalization of Economic Losses from Tropical Cyclones in China During 1983–2015', International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 195-206. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-018-0172-y

Walz, MA, Donat, MG & Leckebusch, GC 2018, 'Large-scale drivers and seasonal predictability of extreme wind speeds over the North Atlantic and Europe', Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, vol. 123, no. 20, pp. 11,518-11,535. https://doi.org/10.1029/2017JD027958

Walz, MA, Befort, DJ, Kirchner-Bossi, NO, Ulbrich, U & Leckebusch, GC 2018, 'Modelling serial clustering and inter-annual variability of European winter windstorms based on large-scale drivers', International Journal of Climatology, vol. 38, no. 7, pp. 3044-3057. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.5481, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.5481

Grieger, J, Leckebusch, G, Raible, CC, Rudeva, I & Simmonds, I 2018, 'Subantarctic cyclones identified by 14 tracking methods, and their role for moisture transports into the continent', Tellus A, vol. 70, no. 1, 1454808. https://doi.org/10.1080/16000870.2018.1454808

Mamadjanova, G, Wild, S, Walz, MA & Leckebusch, GC 2018, 'The role of synoptic processes in mudflow formation in the piedmont areas of Uzbekistan', Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, vol. 18, no. 11, pp. 2893-2919. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-2893-2018

Walz, M, Kruschke, T, Rust, HW, Ulbrich, U & Leckebusch, G 2017, 'Quantifying the extremity of windstorms for regions featuring infrequent events', Atmospheric Science Letters, vol. 18, no. 7, pp. 315-322. https://doi.org/10.1002/asl.758

Osinski, R, Lorenz, P, Kruschke, T, Voigt, M, Ulbrich, U, Leckebusch, G, Faust, E, Hofherr, T & Majewski, D 2016, 'An approach to build an event set of European windstorms based on ECMWF EPS', Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 255-268. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-16-255-2016

Commissioned report

Acton, J, Anderson, P, Andres, L, Angus, M, Amor, P, Arrowsmith, J (ed.), Asmelash, H, Bartington, S (ed.), Bengtsson, F, Bhullar, L, Bloss, W, Bonet, B, Börner, S, O Bonsu, N, Bryson, JR, Burns, V, Burrows, A, Calvert, C, Cassidy, N, Cavoski, A, Chadyiwa, M, Chapman, H, Chapman, L, Cockram, M, Degendardt, L, Dickinson, D, Ding, Y, Dobrzynski, D, Dolo, M, Dora, J, Ercolani, M, Ersoy, A, Farag, H, Ferranti, E, Fisher, R, Freer, M, Goldmann, N, Goode, CE, Greenham, S, Gulati, S, Hadfield-Hill, S, Harper, G, Hegerl, G, Hillmansen, S, Holmes, J, Huang, JJ, Huser, C, Jackson, R, Jaroszweski, D, Jefferson, I, Johnson, J, Kaewunruen, S, Kelly-Akinnuoye, F, Kettles, G, Kraftl, P, Krause, S, Leckebusch, GC, Lee, R, Lockwood, B (ed.), Lohse, J, Luna Diez, E, Lynch, I (ed.), MacKenzie, R, Maddison, D, Makepeace, J, Mann, V, Marino, R, Mavronicola, N, McDonald, M, McGowan, K (ed.), Metje, N, Ng, K, Nicol, J, O'Sullivan, C, Phalkey, N, Prestwood, E, Pyatt, N, Quinn, A, Radcliffe, J (ed.), Ravi, M, Reardon, L, Reeder, T, O’Regan, P, Remedios, L, Roberts, J, Rogers, C, Rungskunroch, P, van Schaik, W, Swan, J (ed.), Thomson, I, Toft, H (ed.), Tong, J, Botello Villagrana, F, Walton, A, Wason, C (ed.), Weir, C, Wood, R & Zhong, J 2021, Addressing the climate challenge. University of Birmingham. https://doi.org/10.25500/epapers.bham.00003451

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