Department of Geography

Dr Edward Hanna

Reader in Climate Change

	Room number:	F18
	Telephone (internal):	27965
	Telephone (UK):	0114 222 7965
	Telephone (International):	+44 114 222 7965
	Email:	E.Hanna@Sheffield.ac.uk

Edward Hanna received a BSc in Planetary Science (First Class Honours) from University College London in 1995 and completed a PhD in Satellite Remote Sensing of Antarctic Sea Ice and Climatic Couplings at the University of Bristol in 1998. This was followed by a period of postdoctoral research in the Department of Meteorology, University of Reading between 1998 and 2000 before being appointed as lecturer in Meteorology at the Institute of Marine Studies, University of Plymouth in November 2000, and promotion to a senior lectureship in September 2002.

In September 2003 Edward was appointed as Lecturer in Climate Change at the Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2006.

Edward is a Fellow of both the Royal Meteorological and Royal Astronomical Societies, member of the International Glaciological Society, member of the American Geophysical Union, has served as a Council member of the British Astronomical Association, and is an Editorial Board member of both Weather (RMetS) and The Cryosphere (European Geosciences Union).

Research interests

Current research

Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance and interactions with climate

My main main current research activity involves using climatic and glaciological datasets and models, to estimate the present-day surface mass balance, and hence contribution to global sea-level change, of the Greenland Ice Sheet (eg Hanna et al, Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres, 2005), in collaboration with partners in the USA (including NASA), Belgium, Denmark and University of Wales Swansea.

Read more about my ice sheet mass balance research

Global atmospheric pressure variability and storminess reconstruction

Global atmospheric pressure variability and storminess reconstruction from meteorological observations and climate models, using our novel pressure variability index, dp(abs) (Jónsson and Hanna, Meteorologische Zeitschrift, 2007); exploration of the pressure-variability spectrum in time and space and links with climatic change. This aspect of the research includes collaborations with the Hadley Centre, Icelandic Meteorological Office and Danish Meteorological Institute, among others.

Read more about my atmospheric reconstruction research

Sea-surface temperature reconstructions, variability and links with climate change

Sea-surface temperature reconstructions, variability and links with climate change; related air-sea fluxes and interaction in the North Atlantic, in collaboration with the Icelandic Meteorological Office and Marine Research Institute in Reykjavik (Hanna et al, Journal of Climate, 2006).

Read more about my sea-surface temperature reconstructions research

Monitoring and analysing the effect of solar eclipses worldwide on weather conditions in the boundary layer

Monitoring and analysing the effect of solar eclipses worldwide on weather conditions in the boundary layer: co-ordinated, led and published the first-ever analysis (of the 11 August 1999 total solar eclipse) from a comprehensive station network (Hanna, Weather, 2000). More general interests include climatology, Earth sciences, remote sensing, applied and historical meteorology, including instruments and observations, with special interests in astronomy and planetary science. Edward is actively interested in a possible solar-climatic link - not all global warming is likely man-made! An active meteorological observer, Edward maintains an automatic weather station in North Sheffield as part of the Climatological Observers Link (COL) network.

Read more about my solar eclipse weather effects research

Edward has acted as Principal Investigator of a new British Council BRIDGE (2007/8) award "Keeping it cool..." - a new British-Russian collaborative research venture on the subject of climate change. He co-supervises a Marie Curie Fellow, Zhenlin Yang, who is investigating climate-ecosystem linkages in the Abisko catchment, Swedish Lapland, in a four-year (2007-2011) project, and was co-advisor of former PhD student (and current Research Fellow in the department) Dr Tris Irvine-Fynn (researching polythermal glacier hydrology).

Key publications

• Hanna, E., Cappelen, J., Fettweis, X., Huybrechts, P., Luckman, A., Ribergaard, M.H. (2009). Hydrologic response of the Greenland Ice Sheet: the role of oceanographic forcing. Hydrological Processes (Special Issue: Hydrologic Effects of a Shrinking Cryosphere), 23(1), 7-30.
  doi:10.1002/hyp.7090
• Hanna, E., Cappelen, J., Allan, R., Jónsson, T., le Blancq, F., Lillington, T. and Hickey, K. (2008). New insights into North European and North Atlantic surface pressure variability, storminess and related climatic change since 1830. Journal of Climate, 21(24), 6739-6766.
  doi:10.1175/2008JCLI2296.1
• Hanna, E., Huybrechts, P., Steffen, K., Cappelen, J., Huff, R., Shuman, C., Irvine-Fynn, T., Wise, S. and Griffiths, M. (2008). Increased runoff from melt from the Greenland Ice Sheet: a response to global warming. Journal of Climate, 21(2), 331-341.
  doi:10.1175/2007JCLI1964.1
• Hanna, E., Jónsson, T., Ólafsson, J. and Valdimarsson, H. (2006). Icelandic coastal sea-surface temperature records constructed: putting the pulse on air-sea-climate interactions in the northern North Atlantic. Part 1: Comparison with HadISST1 open ocean surface temperatures and prelimuinary analysis of long-term patterns and anomalies of SSTs around Iceland. Journal of Climate, 19(21), 5652-5666.
  doi:10.1175/JCLI3933.1
• Hanna, E., Huybrechts, P., Janssens, I., Cappelen, J., Steffen, K. and Stephens, A. (2005). Runoff and mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet: 1958-2003. Journal of Geophysical Research- Atmospheres, 110(D13), D13108
  doi:10.1029/2004JD005641

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