Freddy Orpin

Freddy Orpin is a first-year PhD student supervised by Dr Francesco Muschitiello. His research uses a range of numerical techniques, including Bayesian inference and machine learning, to translate between the languages of palaeoclimate records and climate models, and to benchmark models against past climates beyond the observational period.

Climate interventions cannot be trialled at scale in advance, so their effects are largely judged using models. Comprehensive global observations to test those models span only a few decades of conditions close to today's. Palaeoclimate proxies and historical data hold a far longer and more varied record of how the climate system behaves, though written in a different language from that of the models.