Francisco de Melo Viríssimo
Francisco worked at the Grantham Research Institute at LSE from November 2021 until August 2024 as a researcher in climate modelling. His work was primarily focused on the foundations of climate ensemble design as a tool to provide climate information users and consumers (such as economists, decision makers and journalists) with robust and reliable knowledge.
Francisco is a mathematician working in Earth and Environmental Sciences, with a particular interest in ocean biogeochemistry and climate dynamics. Prior his appointment at the Institute, he worked as a Research Scientist for the UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC) in Southampton, as part of their Ocean Biogeosciences and Marine Systems Modelling groups, where he is still an associate visitor.
His research experience spans areas such as fluid mechanics, applied dynamical systems, computational mathematics and marine biogeochemical cycles.
Background
Francisco graduated with a BSc in Pure Mathematics (2011) and an MSc in Applied Mathematics (2014), both from the University of São Paulo (Brazil), and with a PhD in Mathematics (2018) from the University of Bath (UK). Following his PhD, Francisco spent a few years working as a Research Scientist for the UK’s National Oceanography Centre. Francisco is also a visitor at the Interdisciplinary Climate Investigation Centre (INCLINE) at the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil).
In addition to his scientific work, Francisco has a broad experience in serving for professional and learned societies in his areas of expertise and in different roles. In particular, he is currently an elected Councillor and Trustee for the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), which is the professional and learned society for Mathematics in the UK.
Research interests
- Ocean and climate modelling (e.g. ODESSS project);
- Marine biogeochemistry and the ocean’s carbon cycle (e.g. de Melo Viríssimo et al., 2022);
- Geophysical fluid mechanics: (e.g. de Melo Viríssimo & Milewski, 2019);
- Applied, nonlinear dynamical systems (e.g. de Melo Viríssimo, 2019);
- Knowledge exchange in Earth and Environmental Sciences.
Research
Research - 2025
Utilising a low-dimensional system with key characteristics of a climate model, the authors of this paper examine two types of parametric uncertainty through a large ensemble approach. Read more
Research - 2024
The authors of this paper report on an event where a broad and diverse group of marine biogeochemists were invited to construct flowcharts to support making the decision of when to include a new process in a model. Read more
Research - 2023
In this article, we approach the problem of measuring and interpreting the mid-term climate of a non-autonomous chaotic dynamical system... Read more
The authors of this paper use a global ocean-biogeochemical model to show that seasonal variability in a spatially uniform flux attenuation can lead to spatial variability emerging in annual mean transfer efficiency that matches observations of being higher at high latitudes than in low latitudes Read more
Research - 2022
This article reports on a mini-symposium ‘Mathematical and Computational Perspectives in Marine Biogeochemistry and the Ocean’s Carbon Cycle’ on 15... Read more
The authors of this paper demonstrate that organic carbon fluxes at 1,000 m are a good predictor of long-term carbon sequestration and suggest this is an important metric of the BCP that should be prioritized in future model studies. Read more
The Bristol CMIP6 Data Hackathon formed part of the Met Office Climate Data Challenge Hackathon series during 2021, bringing together... Read more
The biological carbon pump is a key component of the marine carbon cycle. This surface-to-deep flux of carbon is usually... Read more
Events
News
News - 2024
In this LSE Q&A article Francisco de Melo Virissimo discusses his work at the Grantham Research Institute and the important... Read more
This article reports on the Mathematical Sciences Awards at STEM for Britain. Read more
This article reports on the winners of the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals for mathematics in the 2024 STEM for... Read more
This article considers how novel dynamical systems approach may lead to better forecasting using less computational power. The article references... Read more
News - 2022
In this commentary article Francisco de Melo Viríssimo explores how mathematics contributes to marine biogeochemistry modeling. Read more
This article reports on new research which uncovers how seasonal changes affect the amount and rate of carbon as it... Read more