Hi, I am Scott

About me

Over the past decade I have been dedicated to pioneering the new field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Environmental Science. My work has directly contributed to transforming how we predict and respond to environmental change, including climate and weather-related risks.

In 2018 I established the BAS AI Lab, through which I formed a research team to focus on forecasting changes in Arctic sea ice. This resulted in my team developing the widely recognised IceNet programme, which delivered the first AI-powered pan-Arctic seasonal sea ice forecasting model. IceNet represented a step-change in forecasting outperforming the traditional models, particularly in predicting extreme sea ice extent months in advance. The AI model was featured in Wired Magazine, by Nvidia, the BBC and other news outlets, and the core publication was ranked among the 25 most downloaded Nature Communications articles across Earth and Environmental Sciences published in 2021. IceNet was also showcased as an “AI for Good” exemplar by the UK government as part of the first International AI Safety Summit, 2023.

The innovation of IceNet has delivered significant, tangible impact. One major real-world application is our collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Government of Nunavut, which resulted in the ability to predict critical sea ice freeze-up dates which could be crucial for Arctic conservation including Caribou migration and to facilitate effective management of polar bear surveys. This pioneering work was featured in a 2025 documentary with HRH King Charles III.

Since joining the Alan Turing Institute, I expanded my work into the domain of AI for optimised environmental sensing and monitoring and weather forecasting which alongside IceNet now forms my Mission in Environmental Forecasting.

Developing sovereign environmental forecasting capabilities is a priority for my team. I was one of the founding members of the Aardvark Weather model team, a revolutionary system that replaces the entire, complex, traditional weather forecasting pipeline with a single, novel deep learning architecture. Aardvark can ingest multimodal data (satellites, weather stations, weather balloons) and generate a ten-day global forecast at speeds thousands of times faster than previous existing systems - both traditional and AI-based - while running on a desktop computer. This technological breakthrough has helped to secure financial support from the Gates Foundation. We are now working to deploy Aardvark within West Africa, together with local meteorological services and university partners to upskill local expertise.

I am also one of two Senior Responsible Owners (SROs) for the FastNet weather forecasting model and a senior author on the 2025 pre-print involving collaboration across a 34-author team. This new AI model is being developed in partnership between the Alan Turing Institute and the UK Met Office, and aims to become the UK’s first AI operational weather forecasting model.

If you would like to connect, you can find me on BlueSky and LinkedIn

Career History

• The Alan Turing Institute, UK
  • Mission Director for Environmental Forecasting, Environment and Sustainability Grand Challenge, 2024-
  • Co-Director Natural Environment, Turing Research and Innovation Cluster in Digital Twins (TRIC-DT), 2023-2024
  • Senior Research Fellow, Group Leader for Environmental Science, Data Science for Science programme, 2020-2023
• British Antarctic Survey (BAS), UK
  • Science Leader, AI Team, 2022-present
  • Founder and Leader of the BAS AI Lab, 2018-present
  • Environmental Data Scientist, 2016-2022
  • Global Climate Modeller, 2009-2016
• University of Cambridge, UK
  • Co-Director, Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in AI for Environmental Risks (AI4ER), co-led by BAS, 2019-2023
  • PhD Student, Climate Science, University of Cambridge, 2005-2009
    • Supervisors: Prof. John Pyle FRS, Prof. Peter Haynes
    • Funded under NERC e-Science (Computationally Intensive Science) scheme
• Bangor Univeristy, Wales, UK
  • Degree in Chemistry, integrated Masters MChem (Hons)
  • Dissertation in computational modelling and quantum physics

Other Roles

• Delivery Board member, Future Marine Research Infrastructure (FMRI), NERC, 2023-
• Member, Digital Research and Infrastructure Group (DRIG), NERC, 2022-
• Senior Expert, Constructing a Digital Environment Strategic Priorities Fund programme, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), 2021-
• Committee Member, Environment and Sustainability Interest Group, The Alan Turing Institute, 2020-
• Committee Member, The Alan Turing Institute-UK Met Office Operational Alliance, 2020-
• Chair, AI4ER Research Committee, University of Cambridge, 2019-2020
• Board member, Cambridge Centre for Climate Science, University of Cambridge, 2011-
• Member, Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge, 2015-
• Committee Member, International Commission on Polar Meteorology, 2015-2023
• Committee Member, NERC-STFC JASMIN committee to develop capacity for AI computing, 2020-
• Co-Chair, BAS Technical Design Authority, 2017-
• Deputy Chair, Cambridge Earth System Science DTP, University of Cambridge, 2017-18
• Secretary, Global Environmental Research Committee, The Royal Society, 2016-2017
• Innovation Champion, BAS, 2014-2016

Recognition

• Our group was acknowledged as one of four “AI for Good” exemplars by the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology as part of the AI Safety Summit, 2023
• IceNet shortlisted for the Frederik Paulsen Arctic Academic Action Award 2023
• Our research featured as the primary AI example in the NERC Digital Strategy (2021 to 2030)
• The journal Nature Communications highlighted our research in the 25 most downloaded Nature Communications articles across Earth, environmental, and planetary sciences published in 2021
• Awarded The Laws Prize by the British Antarctic Survey Club in 2017. The prize is awarded to outstanding young scientists of the British Antarctic Survey in recognition of their achievements, whilst fulfilling the primary purpose of the British Antarctic Survey

Teaching

• Waves and geosciences spring school: Infrasound and beyond, l’Ecole Centrale de Lyon and Sorbonne University, 2022
• Machine Learning and the Physical World, University of Cambridge, 2020-2021
• AI for Earth and Environmental Sciences, ClimBEco Graduate Research School, Lund University and University of Gothenburg, 2021
• Environmental Data Analysis, University of Cambridge, 2019
• Earth System Science Spring School, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, UK, 2010-2014

Funding

I have secured over £25m in grant funding from public and private sectors as both Principal-Investigator (PI) and Co-Investigator (Co-I). These include:

• £5m award to kickstart the Alan Turing Institute’s new Grand Challenge in Environment and Sustainability: “A national UK programme in AI and digital twins to address the biodiversity and climate crisis”, EPSRC, 2023-2024 (PI)
• Surface Fluxes in Antarctica (SURFEIT), NERC 2022-2026 (Co-I)
• Using artificial intelligence to improve weather forecasts, 2022 Endeavour Smart Ideas, New Zealand, 2022-2024 (Co-I)
• DEFIANT: Drivers and Effects of Fluctuations in sea Ice in the ANTarctic, NERC (NE/W004747/1), 2021-2025 (Co-I)
• Scivision: A toolkit for scientific image analysis, Phase 3, 2022-2026 (PI)
• Towards an Antarctic Digital Twin for Instantaneous Decision-Making, NERC, 2021-22 (PI)
• Five projects funded by The Alan Turing Institute, under the Strategic Priorities Fund “AI for science and government (ASG)” (EP/T001569/1):
  • Environmental monitoring: blending satellite and surface data, 2021-2023 (PI)
  • Scivision: A toolkit for scientific image analysis, Phase 1 & 2, 2021-2022 (Co-I)
  • Understanding Arctic sea ice loss, 2019-2021 (PI)
  • Improving tracking of iceberg populations in the Southern Ocean, 2019-2021 (Co-I)
  • Detecting changes in Himalayan glaciers and impacts on water security, 2020-2021 (PI)
• Supporting Pangeo: the community-driven platform for Big Data geoscience, Microsoft AI for Earth, 2020-2021 (Co-I)
• AI for Earth Observation (AI4EO) Accelerator, European Space Agency (ESA), 2020-2022 (Co-I)
• Peruvian Glacier Retreat and its Impact on Water Security (Peru GROWS), NERC (NE/S013296/1) - Newton-Paulet Fund, 2019-2022 (Co-I)
• Emergence of Climate Hazards, NERC (NE/S004726/1), 2019-2022 (Co-I)
• Future Water Security for communities reliant on the Upper Indus, Himalayas, NERC (NE/R000107/1), 2017-2020 (Co-I)
• The North Atlantic Climate System Integrated Study (ACSIS), NERC (NE/N018028/1), 2016-2021 (Co-I)
• Ice shelves in a warming world: Filchner Ice Shelf system, Antarctica (FISS), NERC (NE/L013770/1), 2015-2020 (Co-I)

News

2025/07 - Keynote Speaker, Environmental and Ecological Statistics Conference, Lancaster, UK

2024/11 - Host, Speaker, Panel Chair, Launch event for the Met Office and Turing partnership, Westminster, UK

2024/05 - Keynote Speaker, Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Group Innovation Event, UK

2024/04 - Chair, 13th International Conference on Climate Informatics, The Alan Turing Institute, UK

2023/05 - Shortlisted for the 2023 Frederik Paulsen Arctic Academic Action Award

2023/10 - Science Lead (Turing), FastNet - AI-based Weather Prediction Model, The Alan Turing Institute and Met Office, UK

2023/06 - Secured the role of Co-Director, Turing Research and Innovation Cluster in Digital Twins (TRIC-DT), The Alan Turing Institute, UK

2023/04 - Co-Chair, 12th International Conference on Climate Informatics, University of Cambridge, UK

2023/04 - Joined the Delivery Board for the Future Marine Research Infrastructure (FMRI), NERC, UK

2022/03 - Invited to join the Digital Research and Infrastructure Group (DRIG) to deliver NERC’s 10-year Digital Strategy

2022/03 - Appointed as BAS Science Leader for AI, Joined the BAS Science Strategy Executive Board

2022/02 - Joined the Advisory Group for the UK AI Research Infrastructure Review, a key component of the UK’s National AI strategy

2021/05 - Secured the role of Senior Expert to the NERC Constructing a Digital Environment (CDE) Programme

2021/02 - Principal Investigator (PI) to a multi-institution research programme, Environmental monitoring: blending satellite and surface data

2020/10 - Joined the Steering Committee for the Environment and Sustainability Interest Group, 500+ members, The Alan Turing Institute

2020/09 - Promotion, ~equivalent to Reader/Associate Professor

2020/06 - Invited to join the Steering Committee for The Alan Turing Institute-UK Met Office operational alliance

2020/04 - Started secondment to the Alan Turing Institute under the Data Science for Science programme

2019/09 - Stated role of Co-Director for the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in the Application of AI to the study of Environmental Risks (AI4ER), led by University of Cambridge and BAS

2018/06 - Established the BAS Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab

2017/09 - Awarded The Laws Prize, British Antarctic Survey Club

2016/09 - Promotion, ~equivalent to Lecturer. Changed role to “Environmental Data Scientist”

2016/05 - Appointed as Secretary, Global Environmental Research Committee, The Royal Society

2014/09 - Appointed as Innovation Champion, BAS

2011/01 - Co-founded the Cambridge Centre for Climate Science (CCfCS)

2009/12 - Started at British Antarctic Survey (BAS) as a “Global Climate Modeller”, tenured/open-ended position

2009/09 - Completed PhD, “The impact of deep convection on the structure of, and transport through, the tropical tropopause layer”, University of Cambridge, UK

2005/10 - Started PhD, University of Cambridge, UK .

• Research