Profile
Dr Neven S. Fučkar conducts research on the dynamics, prediction, attribution, and impacts of extreme events, including heatwaves, droughts, floods, and sea-ice extremes, in a changing climate. His research interests span natural hazards, coupled climate dynamics, high-resolution Earth system modelling, hydrology, polar processes, and data science. Neven’s interdisciplinary research focuses on the interactions of the climate system and extreme events with society and ecosystems across multiple dimensions, involving public health, early childhood development, multi-sector climate risk, water resources management, economy, and ecology. His work aims to strengthen resilience, adaptation, and sustainability as regional climates, landscapes and societies rapidly change. Neven regularly collaborates with national and international partners and stakeholders, including the British Antarctic Survey, the UK Health Security Agency, the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, and the World Bank, and has an extensive record of public engagement and outreach (e.g., Oxford University Museum of Natural History, COP26 Universities Network podcasts, ClimArts, etc.).
Neven received his PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from Princeton University, USA, where he conducted research on climate and ocean dynamics using a hierarchy of models at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) - the birthplace of the first numerical weather prediction model and the first coupled climate general circulation model. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked at the NOAA NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research. He has held seven named fellowships, including the Princeton University Science and Engineering Fellowship and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship at Oxford. Just before joining Oxford, he was a Juan de la Cierva Postdoctoral Fellow in the Earth Sciences Department at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), and his research focused on climate variability and change, sea ice dynamics, palaeoclimate, subseasonal to decadal predictions, downscaling and bias correction, and interactions of weather and climate with the biosphere.
Teaching & supervision
Neven has extensive experience in teaching, tutoring, and (co-)supervising students and postdoctoral researchers across the University of Oxford, including the School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE), the Department of Earth Sciences, the Department of Physics, the Department for Continuing Education, and the Department of Psychiatry. He has served as a Stipendiary Lecturer in Physical Geography at St Peter’s College and as a College Advisor at St Antony’s College. Prior to joining Oxford, Neven designed and taught a wide range of courses, classes, and labs at Texas A&M University (College Station, TX, USA), Princeton University (Princeton, NJ, USA), the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain), the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Barcelona, Spain), and the University of Helsinki (Helsinki, Finland).
Publications
See the full list of Neven's publications on Google Scholar or ORCiD
Fučkar, N.S., et al. (2026) Heatwave over eastern North America in the late June-early July 2026 intensified by climate change, ClimaMeter, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, CNRS. Zenodo.
Fučkar, N.S., et al. (2026) High temperatures over the Antarctic Peninsula in June 2026 strengthened by human-driven climate change, ClimaMeter, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, CNRS. Zenodo.
Whittington, D., et al. (2025) World - Water and Climate Economics Research and Analytics: Guidelines of Economic Analysis, World Bank Report.
Roberts, M.J., et al. (2025) High-Resolution Model Intercomparison Project phase 2 (HighResMIP2) towards CMIP7, Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 1307-1322.
Jones, C.G., et al. (2024) Bringing it all together: science priorities for improved understanding of Earth system change and to support international climate policy, Earth System Dynamics, 15, 1319-1351.
Lee, J.J., et al. (2024) Rising to the Challenge: Success Stories and Strategies for Achieving Climate Adaptation and Resilience, World Bank Report.
Murage, P., et al. (2024) Future temperature-related mortality in the UK under climate change scenarios: Impact of population ageing and bias-corrected climate projections, Environmental Research, Vol. 259, 119565.
Mitchell, D., et al. (2024) Expert judgement reveals current and emerging UK climate-mortality burden, The Lancet Planetary Health, Vol. 8, Issue 9, e684 - e694.
Fučkar, N.S., (2024) Extreme heatwaves in south and south-east Asia are a sign of things to come, The Conversation.
Macintyre, H.L., et al. (2023) Chapter 2. Temperature effects on mortality in a changing climate, Health Effects of Climate Change in the UK, UK Health Security Agency Report.
Notz, D., and SIMIP Community (2020) Arctic sea ice in CMIP6, Geophysical Research Letters, 47, e2019GL086749.
Fučkar, N.S., et al. (2020) On high precipitation in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Zambia in February 2018, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 101 (1), S47-S52.
Fučkar, N.S., et al. (2019) Dynamical prediction of Arctic sea ice modes of variability, Climate Dynamics, 52, 3157–3173.
Otto, F.E.L., et al. (2018) Anthropogenic influence on the drivers of the Western Cape drought 2015–2017, Environmental Research Letters, 13 124010.
Fučkar, N.S., et al. (2016) Clusters of interannual sea ice variability in the northern hemisphere, Climate Dynamics, 47, 1527–1543.
Haarsma, R.J., et al. (2016) High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP v1.0) for CMIP6, Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 4185–4208.
Fučkar, N.S., et al., (2014) A posteriori adjustment of near-term climate predictions: Accounting for the drift dependence on the initial conditions, Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, 5200–5207.
Thakur, G., et al. (2013) The Synchrosqueezing algorithm for time-varying spectral analysis: Robustness properties and new paleoclimate applications, Signal Processing, Vol. 93, Issue 5, 1079-1094.
Frierson, D.M.W., et al. (2013) Contribution of ocean overturning circulation to tropical rainfall peak in the Northern Hemisphere, Nature Geoscience, Vol. 6, Issue 11, 940–944.
Fučkar, N.S., et al., (2013) Influence of the extratropical ocean circulation on the Intertropical Convergence Zone in an idealized coupled general circulation model, J. Climate, 26, 4612-4629.