Dr Ellen Dyer

Profile

Ellen is a climate scientist in the who specialises in African climate systems and joined SoGE at the University of Oxford in 2016. Her current work focuses on understanding historical climate and future projections in models for Ethiopia and Kenya as part of the REACH project. She is also interested in how climate information is communicated and disseminated and is leading a study on climate information flows in the Awash Basin, Ethiopia. Ellen has also been a research associate on the LaunchPAD project (https://launchpad6.home.blog) to build a set of model evaluation diagnostics for Africa. With LaunchPAD, she has been a mentor and collaborator for early career research fellows at four African universities creating diagnostic metrics for global climate models. Previously, her work has used modelling experiments to examine the influence of the Indian Ocean on rainfall in the Sahel, and rainfall moisture sources and water isotopes in vapour in the Congo Basin.

Ellen's interests include understanding challenges in using climate information in Africa - from difficulties in capturing physical processes in models to the confidence users have in information at a local scale and everything in between. Ellen completed her PhD in Atmospheric Physics from the University of Toronto in 2016. She has a background in Physics and African Studies.

Selected publications

Journal articles

• Lino, O., Mutemi, J., Dyer, E. et al. Characteristics of the Turkana low-level jet stream and the associated rainfall in CMIP6 models. Climate Dynamics (2022). doi:10.1007/s00382-022-06499-4
• Armstrong, A., Dyer, E., Koehler, J., Hope, R. Intra-seasonal rainfall and piped water revenue variability in rural Africa, Global Environmental Change, Volume 76, (2022), doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102592
• Kuete, G., Mba, W.M., James, R., Dyer, E., Annor, T., Washington, R. How do coupled models represent the African Easterly Jets and their associated dynamics over Central Africa during the September–November rainy season? Climate Dynamics (2022). doi:10.1007/s00382-022-06467-y
• Taguela, T.N., Pokam, W.M., Dyer, E. et al. Low-level circulation over Central Equatorial Africa as simulated from CMIP5 to CMIP6 models. Climate Dynamics (2022). doi:10.1007/s00382-022-06411-0
• Dyer, E., Hirons, L. & Taye, M.T. (2022). July–September rainfall in the Greater Horn of Africa: the combined influence of the Mascarene and South Atlantic highs. Climate Dynamics. doi:10.1007/s00382-022-06287-0
• Grasham, C. F., Calow, R., Casey, V., Charles, K. J., de Wit, S., Dyer, E., . . . Zaidi, H. (2021). Engaging with the politics of climate resilience towards clean water and sanitation for all. npj Clean Water, 4(1). doi:10.1038/s41545-021-00133-2
• Dyer, E., & Washington, R. (2021). Kenyan long rains: A subseasonal approach to process-based diagnostics.Journal of Climate, 34(9), 3311-3326. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0914.1
• Bussi, G., Whitehead, P. G., Jin, L., Taye, M. T., Dyer, E., Hirpa, F. A., . . . Charles, K. J. (2021). Impacts of climate change and population growth on river nutrient loads in a data scarce region: The upper awash river (Ethiopia). Sustainability (Switzerland), 13(3), 1-15. doi:10.3390/su13031254
• Taye, M. T., Dyer, E., Charles, K. J., & Hirons, L. C. (2021). Potential predictability of the Ethiopian summer rains: Understanding local variations and their implications for water management decisions. Science of the Total Environment, 755. doi:10.1016/ j.scitotenv.2020.142604
• Mahony, J., Dyer, E., & Washington, R. (2021). The precipitation patterns and atmospheric dynamics of the Serengeti National Park. International Journal of Climatology, 41(S1), E2051-E2072. doi:10.1002/joc.6831
• Peng, J., Dadson, S., Hirpa, F., Dyer, E., Lees, T., Miralles, D. G., . . . Funk, C. (2020). A pan-African high-resolution drought index dataset. Earth System Science Data, 12(1), 753-769. doi:10.5194/essd-12-753-2020
• Dyer, E., Washington, R., & Teferi Taye, M. (2020). Evaluating the CMIP5 ensemble in Ethiopia: Creating a reduced ensemble for rainfall and temperature in Northwest Ethiopia and the Awash basin. International Journal of Climatology, 40(6), 2964-2985. doi:10.1002/joc.6377
• Hirpa, F. A., Alfieri, L., Lees, T., Peng, J., Dyer, E., & Dadson, S. J. (2019). Streamflow response to climate change in the Greater Horn of Africa. Climatic Change, 156(3), 341-363. doi:10.1007/s10584-019-02547-x
• Taye, M. T., Dyer, E., Hirpa, F. A., & Charles, K. (2018). Climate change impact on water resources in the Awash basin, Ethiopia. Water (Switzerland), 10(11). doi:10.3390/ w10111560
• Hirpa, F. A., Dyer, E., Hope, R., Olago, D. O., & Dadson, S. J. (2018). Finding sustainable water futures in data-sparse regions under climate change: Insights from the Turkwel River basin, Kenya. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 19, 124-135. doi:10.1016/ j.ejrh.2018.08.005
• Dyer, E. L. E., Jones, D. B. A., Nusbaumer, J., Li, H., Collins, O., Veboreh, G., & Noone, D. (2017). Congo Basin precipitation: Assessing seasonality, regional interactions, and sources of moisture. Journal of Geophysical Research, 122(13), 6882-6898. doi:10.1002/2016JD026240
• Dyer, E. L. E., Jones, D. B. A., Li, R., Sawaoka, H., & Mudryk, L. (2017). Sahel precipitation and regional teleconnections with the Indian Ocean. Journal of Geophysical Research, 122(11), 5654-5676. doi:10.1002/2016JD026014

Reports

• Murgatroyd, A., Charles, K.J., Chautard, A., Dyer, E., Grasham, C., Hope, R., Hoque, S.F., Korzenevica, M., Munday, C., Alvarez-Sala, J., Dadson, S., Hall, J.W., Kebede, S., Nileshwar, A., Olago, D., Salehin, M., Ward, F., Washington, R., Yeo, D. and Zeleke, G. (2021) Water Security for Climate Resilience Report. University of Oxford: REACH, UK.
   
• Hope, R., Katuva, J., Nyaga, C., Koehler, J., Charles, K., Nowicki, S., Dyer, E., Olago, D., Tanui, F., Trevett, A., Thomas, M., and Gladstone, N. (2021). Delivering safely-managed water to schools in Kenya. REACH Working Paper 8, University of Oxford, UK.