Rachel H. White

I enjoy playing with general circulation models (GCMs, or 'climate models'), mostly the Community Earth System model (CESM), but also the ISCA framework for idealised general circulation modelling and the regional Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF). Some of my favourite experiments include moving mountains around in climate models (see this paper), removing some mountains altogether (see our paper on the importance of the Mongolian mountains) or even rotating the Earth backwards in a climate model to better understand why our climate today looks the way it does (see results in this paper).

When I'm not playing with mountains in climate models, I enjoy playing in real mountains - hiking, backpacking, even horse-back riding in Mongolia (and pretending to removing the Mongolian mountains whilst there!). As of 2022 I have completed about 75% of the GR11, a ~840km traverse of the Spanish Pyrenees - the picture at the top of this page is from that hike, in the Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park. The first 400km of the GR11 that I completed, I hiked solo over 26 days during July 2020. I was sufficiently proud of this that I spent some time (during my second 14-day COVID-quarantine in 4 weeks - as I said, moving internationally during the early stages of the pandemic, really not recommended!) learning how to extract data from my GPS in a format that I could read into python, and creating a plot of elevation against distance for my hike, with all my camping and /mountain hut spots marked, along with everywhere that I was able to get myself a glass of wine after a long day hiking! (Code can be found here).

Working in climate science, particularly looking at extreme weather events, I'm all too aware of the future that awaits us if we don't take substantial and meaningful steps to reduce CO₂ emissions. When I was living in Barcelona, I gave up air travel to help reduce my personal carbon footprint, and had some fantastic journeys by train across Europe when I travelled for work - it was a great excuse to visit colleagues in different cities along the way. Giving up air travel is easier to do on a continent with excellent train connections, and when you don't live an ocean away from your family, but even in North America there are things I do to reduce my carbon footprint: I have an e-bike I use to get around Vancouver and commute to work on (and take the bus in winter when I get tired of being rained on every day!); I've substantially reduced meat from my diet (particularly red meat which has the biggest climate impact); I try to reduce food waste and packaging; and I have been involved in many climate outreach events to share my knowledge on climate change with others and to help spark conversations about climate change, its impacts and what we can do - see this website for more ideas for how you can reduce your carbon footprint. I also enjoy learning, practicing and performing aerial circus and flying trapeze, and I have plans to combine aerial circus and climate outreach... watch this space! If you're interested in hosting a climate outreach event combined with aerial circus, and you think you have the space and/or infrastructure for an aerial rig setup, drop me an email and let's see what we can work out!