Dr Alison Ming 

Dr Ming is a Title A Teaching Fellow at Churchill.

As the atmosphere thins out into space with increasing altitude, one encounters five distinct layers bounded by “pauses” at which significant changes in thermal characteristics, chemical composition and dynamical properties occur. The weather we experience happens in the lowermost layer, the troposphere. Above this, ozone is abundant and water vapour concentrations are low in the layer known as the stratosphere. Although at first sight the stratosphere appears quiescent compared to the troposphere, it is home to a slow but persistent circulation, the Brewer-Dobson circulation, that transports air from over the tropical troposphere to the poles over the course of decades. In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that the stratosphere plays a key role in influencing the troposphere. My research focuses on better understanding the mechanisms driving the different processes in the stratosphere as well as the interactions between them.