- School of Environmental Sciences
- University of East Anglia
- Norwich
- NR4 7TJ
- UK
- +44-1603-591373
Manu Anna Thomas
Email: Manu (dot) Thomas (at) uea.ac.ukI am senior research associate (postdoctoral fellow) at the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. Broadly speaking, my research focus is on investigating the influence of aerosols on climate in general, and on clouds in particular using global general circulation models.
DMS-Cloud Climate Feedback
The CLAW hypothesis (Charlson et al. 1987) proposes a feedback loop between ocean ecosystems and the earth's climate. The exact contribution of each process in their proposed feedback loop is still uncertain. I am using complex general circulation model, ECHAM5-HAMMOZ, to assess changes in cloud microphysical properties arising from prescribed perturbations to oceanic dimethyl sulphide (DMS) emissions in a present day and future climate scenarios. ECHAM5-HAMMOZ consists of three interlinked modules, the atmospheric model ECHAM5, the aerosol module HAM and the tropospheric chemistry module MOZ.Climatic Impact of Volcanic Aerosols
- During my PhD studies, I was involved in the simulations of the impact of Mt. Pinatubo eruption (Jun 1991) on climate. Mt. Pinatubo eruption resulted in sudden increase of sulfate aerosols high in the stratosphere, which had a short-term but acute impact on our Earth System. I used the state-of-the-art atmospheric GCM ECHAM5 to simulate this impact.
- I am also interested in investigating how the Quasi Biennial Oscillation (QBO) affects the distribution of aerosols after the large volcanic eruption and if the QBO itself is affected by the heavy aerosol loadings in stratosphere.
- In recent years, large volcanic eruptions are used as an analog to evaluate the resources to counteract global warming, since sulfate aerosols can efficiently scatter incoming solar radiation, thereby reducing global surface temperatures. However, we do not have an adequate knowledge of the "variability" of the impacts caused by large volcanic eruptions. So, I am currently investigating this variability.