Centre of Climate, Ocean and Atmosphere (COCOA)

Earth Sciences

COCOA is an Earth Science-led grouping with world-class expertise in Climate, Ocean and Atmosphere research with a remit to understand controls on the climate of the planet, and to advise on how to predict and mitigate the severe consequences of climate and environmental change.

Current research topics

COCOA strengths are presently in Greenhouse gas monitoring and carbon cycle modelling, Paleoecology and biotic responses to climate change, oceanic chemistry and its interaction with global environmental change, air pollution, planetary albedo change owing to aerosol and atmospheric climate change associated with it, and the understanding of past and present day wildfires.

Research environment

At Royal Holloway, our research facilities include the clean labs and associated Neptune mass-spectrometer, a suite of instruments for measuring atmospheric gases including methane, ethane, NOx, and solar radiation. We have laboratories for planetology with associated SEM, cold labs for the generation of large tanks of sea ice, and laboratories of simulation of desert soils for calibration of Earth Observing satellites. We also have excellent computing facilities for modelling studies. The centre also has a mobile atmospheric chemistry laboratory, an automated car. Members of the centre are also heavy users of synchrotron radiation and (inter)national facilities, in x-ray, neutron and laser science.