Profile

Dr Neven S. Fučkar is a climate and data scientist working on dynamics, modelling, attribution and impacts of extreme events (e.g., heatwaves, droughts, floods, sea-ice retreat, etc.) in a changing climate. Neven’s research interests encompass coupled climate dynamics and high-resolution prediction, polar processes, water cycle, and numerical, statistical and machine learning methods. His interdisciplinary research involves the interaction of the climate system and extreme events with society along multiple human dimensions (e.g., public health, early childhood development, multisectoral climate-related risk, water management, energy transition, economy, etc.) to advance resilience, adaptation and sustainability. Neven frequently engages with national and international stakeholders from the UK Health Security Agency to the World Bank, and he has extensive experience with outreach (e.g., Oxford University Museum of Natural History, ClimArts, etc.). 

Neven has a PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, US, where he investigated ocean and climate dynamics with a hierarchy of models at different levels of complexity at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) – the birthplace of the first coupled climate general circulation model. Just before coming to Princeton, he worked at the NOAA NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research. Neven held seven named fellowships, including 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 he worked on climate variability and change, sea ice, palaeoclimate, sub-seasonal to decadal predictions, downscaling and bias correction, and the interaction of weather & climate with biosphere.

Teaching & supervision

Neven has been teaching, tutoring, and (co-)supervising students and postdoctoral fellows in 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 was a stipendiary lecturer in Physical Geography at St Peter’s College, and a college advisor at St Antony’s College. Before coming to Oxford, Neven designed and taught a substantial number of courses, classes and labs at Texas A&M University (College Station, TX, US), Princeton University (Princeton, NJ, US), Autonomous University of Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain), Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Barcelona), and the University of Helsinki (Finland). He actively fosters an inclusive and diverse research and educational environment as a member of the EDI committee at SoGE.

Publications

See the full list of Neven's publications on Google Scholar or ORCiD

Selected publications

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.

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.