Francisco de Melo Viríssimo

Francisco joined the Grantham Research Institute at LSE in November 2021 as a Research Officer in climate modelling. His work is 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 - 2023
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

News
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
