Michelle Maclennan

Climate Scientist

Michelle Maclennan

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Michelle Maclennan

Biography

I am a postdoctoral research associate in the Processes, Impacts, and Changes of Antarctic Extreme weather project. I use global atmospheric models to identify extreme weather events in Antarctica and their synoptic drivers, and regional climate models to simulate their local characteristics and impacts on the surface. In particular, I focus on atmospheric rivers, which are narrow filaments of intense moisture transport in the atmosphere. While the dominant impact of atmospheric rivers is to contribute heavy snowfall over Antarctica, they also bring heat to the ice sheet and ice shelves, and producing complex surface impacts including rainfall and surface melting. In October 2024, I defended my PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. In my current research, I’m using the UK Met Office Unified Model (MetUM) to simulate atmospheric rivers at high spatio-temporal resolution to assess their structure, interaction with interaction with topography and ice sheet geometry, and resultant surface impacts.

Research interests

  • High-impact events
  • Surface mass balance
  • Regional climate modelling
  • Localized atmospheric-ice sheet interactions and the connection to large-scale atmospheric drivers

Collaborations

  • Andrew O. Hoffman, Michelle Maclennan, Jan Lenaerts, Kristine M. Larson, and Knut Christianson (2025). Amundsen Sea Embayment accumulation variability measured with GNSS-IR. The Cryosphere. DOI: 10.5194/tc-19-713-2025
  • Jonathan Wille, Vincent Favier, Irina Gorodetskaya, Cécile Agosta, Rebecca Baiman, Jeb Barrett, Léonard Barthelemy, Burcu Boza, Deniz Bozkurt, Mathieu Casado, Anastasiia Chyhareva, Kyle Clem, Francis Codron, Rajashree Datta, Claudio Durán-Alarcón, Diana Francis, Andrew Hoffman, Marlen Kolbe, Svitlana Krakovska, Gabrielle Linscott, Michelle Maclennan, Kyle Mattingly, Ye Mu, Benjamin Pohl, Christophe Santos, Christine Shields, Emir Toker, Andrew Winters, Ziqi Yin, Xun Zou, Chen Zhang, and Zhenhai Zhang (2025). Atmospheric rivers in Antarctica. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. DOI: 10.1038/s43017-024-00638-7
  • Ella Gilbert, Denys Pishniak, José Abraham Torres, Andrew Orr, Michelle Maclennan, Nander Wever, and Kristiina Verro (2025). Extreme precipitation associated with atmospheric rivers over West Antarctic ice shelves: insights from kilometre-scale regional climate modelling. The Cryosphere. DOI: 10.5194/tc-19-713-2025
  • Naomi E. Ochwat, Ted A. Scambos, Alison F. Banwell, Robert S. Anderson, Michelle L. Maclennan, Ghislain Picard, Julia A. Shates, Sebastian Marinsek, Liliana Margonari, Martin Truffer, and Erin C. Pettit (2024). Triggers of the 2022 Larsen B multi-year landfast sea ice break-out and initial glacier response. The Cryosphere. DOI: 10.5194/tc-2023-88
  • Kyle Clem, Marilyn Raphael, …, Michelle Maclennan, et al. (2024). Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in “State of the Climate in 2023”. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-24-0099.1
  • Jonathan D. Wille, …, Michelle Maclennan, et al. (2024). The extraordinary March 2022 East Antarctica “heat” wave. Part II: impacts on the Antarctic ice sheet. Journal of Climate, DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-23-0176.1
  • Jonathan D. Wille, …, Michelle Maclennan, et al. (2024). The extraordinary March 2022 East Antarctica “heat” wave. Part I: observations and meteorological drivers. Journal of Climate, DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-23-0175.1
  • Kyle Clem, Marilyn Raphael, …, Michelle Maclennan, et al. (2023). Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in “State of the Climate in 2022”. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-23-0077.1
  • Michelle L. Maclennan, Jan T. M. Lenaerts, Christine A. Shields, Andrew O. Hoffman, Nander Wever, Megan Thompson-Munson, Andrew C. Winters, Erin C. Pettit, Theodore A. Scambos, and Jonathan D. Wille (2023). Climatology and Surface Impacts of Atmospheric Rivers on West Antarctica. The Cryosphere. DOI: 10.5194/tc-2022-101

    • Highlight Paper
  • Michelle L. Maclennan, Jan T. M. Lenaerts, Christine A. Shields, and Jonathan D. Wille (2022). Contribution of Atmospheric Rivers to Antarctic Precipitation. Geophysical Research Letters. DOI: 10.1029/2022GL100585
  • Christine A. Shields, Jonathan D. Wille, Allison B. Marquardt Collow, Michelle Maclennan, and Irina V. Gorodetskaya (2022). Evaluating Uncertainty and Modes of Variability for Antarctic Atmospheric Rivers. Geophysical Research Letters. DOI: 10.1029/2022GL099577
  • Kyle Clem, Marilyn Raphael, …, Michelle Maclennan, et al. (2022). Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in “State of the Climate in 2021”. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-22-0078.1
  • Karen E. Alley, Christian T. Wild, Adrian Luckman, Ted A. Scambos, Martin Truffer, Erin C. Pettit, Atsuhiro Muto, Bruce Wallin, Marin Klinger, Tyler Sutterley, Sarah F. Child, Cyrus Hulen, Jan T. M. Lenaerts, Michelle Maclennan, Eric Keenan, and Devon Dunmire (2021). Two decades of dynamic change and progressive destabilization on the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf. The Cryosphere. DOI: 10.5194/tc-15-5187-2021 
  • Michelle L. Maclennan and Jan T. M. Lenaerts (2021). Large-Scale Atmospheric Drivers of Snowfall Over Thwaites Glacier, Antarctica. Geophysical Research Letters. DOI: 10.1029/2021GL093644
  • Sharon Stammerjohn, Theodore Scambos, …, Michelle Maclennan, et al (2021). Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in “State of the Climate in 2020”. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-21-0081.1
  • Theodore Scambos, Sharon Stammerjohn, …, Michelle Maclennan, et al (2020). Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in “State of the Climate in 2019”. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-20-0090.1
  • Natalie M. Freeman, Nicole S. Lovenduski, David R. Munro, Kristen M. Krumhardt, Keith Lindsay, Matthew C. Long, and Michelle Maclennan (2017) The variable and changing South Ocean Silicate Front: Insights from the CESM Large Ensemble. Global Biogeochemical Cycles. DOI: 10.1029/2017GB005816

Publications from NERC Open Research Archive