Urbanisation impacts on local weather and climate

This project investigates how urban growth modifies rainfall, temperature, surface energy exchange, atmospheric circulation, and human thermal exposure. It combines convection-permitting WRF simulations, time-evolving Local Climate Zone datasets, GPM IMERG satellite observations, and rainfall object tracking.

Research components: Local Climate Zone mapping, urban climate modelling, satellite rainfall trends, urban rainfall processes, human thermal exposure, and storm-object tracking.

Published outputs: Multi-decadal Local Climate Zone mapping for Greater Sydney, PLOS Climate (2025); urban rainfall trends and retrieval uncertainty in GPM IMERG, Environmental Research Letters (2026).

LCZ paper ↗ IMERG paper ↗

Extreme rainfall and climate change in Nepal

This project examines the atmospheric drivers of extreme rainfall in Nepal and how precipitation extremes may change under future climate conditions. It combines synoptic analysis, observational datasets, and CMIP6 climate projections.

Published outputs: Extreme summer 2020 precipitation in Nepal, Climate Dynamics (2023); future projections of extreme precipitation in Nepal using CMIP6, Springer Nature (2025).

Climate Dynamics paper ↗

Satellite precipitation evaluation over the Nepalese Himalaya

This project evaluates GPM-era satellite precipitation products against rain-gauge observations across the Nepalese Himalaya. It assesses rainfall detection, intensity, extremes, drought conditions, and elevation-dependent performance over complex terrain.

Published outputs: Sharma et al., Earth and Space Science (2020); Sharma et al., Remote Sensing (2020).

Paper 1 ↗ Paper 2 ↗