Joanna Haigh facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Joanna Haigh
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Haigh interviewed by Carbon Brief in 2019
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| Born |
Joanna Dorothy Haigh
7 May 1954 |
| Education | Hitchin Girls' School |
| Alma mater |
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| Known for | Work on solar variability |
| Awards | Chree Medal (2004) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Atmospheric physics |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Experiments with a two-dimensional model of the general circulation (1980) |
| Doctoral advisor | C.D. Walshaw |
| Notable students | Alice Larkin |
Joanna Dorothy Haigh (born 7 May 1954) is a British physicist and a university professor. Before she retired in 2019, she was a Professor of Atmospheric Physics at Imperial College London. She also helped lead the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and Environment. She used to be the head of the physics department there. She is also a special member of the Royal Society, which is a very old and important science group. She was also the president of the Royal Meteorological Society.
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Early Life and Education
Joanna Haigh was born in 1954. She went to Hitchin Girls' School, which was a school just for girls. When she was a teenager, she was very interested in the weather. She even built her own weather station in her backyard!
She later studied physics at Somerville College at the University of Oxford. After that, she earned a Master of Science (MSc) degree in meteorology from Imperial College London. She then went back to Oxford to get her Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in atmospheric physics. She finished her DPhil in 1980.
Career and Research Focus
Dr. Haigh is now an Emeritus Professor of atmospheric physics at Imperial College London. This means she is a retired professor who is still highly respected. From 2009 to 2014, she was the head of the physics department at Imperial College. Since 2014, she has also been a co-director of the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and Environment.
Professor Haigh is well-known for her work on how the sun changes and affects Earth's climate. She also studies how heat moves through the atmosphere. This is called radiative transfer. She looks at how different layers of the atmosphere interact. She also works on climate modelling, which uses computers to predict future climate.
She has been an editor for a science magazine called Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. She also helped write a big report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This group gives advice to governments about climate change.
Understanding Climate Change
Dr. Haigh agrees with what most scientists believe about climate change. She says that human activities, like releasing carbon dioxide into the air, are causing the Earth to get warmer. This is known as the greenhouse effect.
In 2016, she explained that if we keep releasing carbon dioxide at the same rate, the Earth's temperature could go up by 5 degrees Celsius. This would happen by the end of the next century. She also said that to stop the temperature from rising, we would need to completely stop releasing carbon into the air.
After a big meeting about climate change in 2015 (called COP21), she felt hopeful. But later, when Donald Trump became president of the United States, she became worried. She said she was "scared" about what might happen if other leaders followed his example.
Awards and Special Recognition
In 2013, Joanna Haigh was given a special award called Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). This was for her important work in physics.
She was also the president of the Royal Meteorological Society from 2012 to 2014. This society is for people who study weather and climate. In 2013, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). This is a very high honor for scientists in the UK.
Her nomination for this honor said she was recognized for her leadership in studying how the sun affects the middle part of the atmosphere. It also mentioned her work on how these effects can reach Earth's surface. Her skills in modelling how heat moves through the atmosphere helped create fast and accurate computer models. These models are now used by many groups around the world to study climate.
In 2004, she received the Charles Chree Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics. In 2010, she won the Royal Meteorological Society Adrian Gill prize. Both awards were for her work on how the sun changes and its effects on our climate.
In 2020, she was included in the BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power list. This list celebrates influential women. She was also interviewed about her life and work on a radio show called The Life Scientific in 2013.
Dr. Haigh is also a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP).
