 | Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Departamento de Fisica de la Tierra II) |
 | Universidade de Vigo (Departamento de Fisica Aplicada) |
 | Archivo General de Indias |
| The Universidad Complutense de Madrid is the biggest University in Spain, with 6000 teachers, 100000 students and 195 departments. It has signed more than 100 contracts under FP4 valued at almost 1 million euros. The group is mostly based on the Departamento de Física de la Tierra II, with four of its members belonging to this Department; further members belong to the Vigo University and the Autonomous University in Madrid and the Archivo General de Indias. |  |
| The teaching responsibilities include atmospheric dynamics, atmospheric modelling, climatology, oceanography, atmospheric physics, statistics and fluid mechanics at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. During the last five years ten PhD theses have been presented under the direction of the members of the group. The group has research experience based on the following themes: time series analysis, atmospheric pollution modelling, mesoscale systems analysis, atmospheric radiation, atmospheric pollution and health and climate reconstruction and variability. During the last five years more than forty research papers have been published in peer-reviewed journals by the members of the group and more than thirty communications have been presented to international meetings. The atmospheric pollution studies include problems of urban air pollution, mostly in Madrid, and the analysis of long-range pollution transport affecting Spain. Results of this research have been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Chemosphere, Annales Geophysicae and Journal of the Air Waste Management Association. The mesoscale system analysis has focused on the analysis of the Western Mediterranean cyclogenesis, which produces most of the extreme precipitation events over Spain, and on the development of wind models. The results have published in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics. The Department’s interest in atmospheric radiation has been centred on solar UV and ozone analysis and modelling. Studies have been made of ozone and the UV measured in Madrid and studied over much of Spain. Ozone transport has also been studied. Results have been published in the Journal of Applied Meteorology, Chemosphere and Physics and Chemistry of the Earth. The relationship between health, atmospheric conditions and air pollution has been intensively investigated in Madrid. The influence of temperature, humidity, and synoptic patterns on mortality and morbidity has been analysed through the use of time series analysis. Real time models are now operating in the city. The main results have been published on the Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health, European Journal of Epidemiology and International Journal of Epidemiology. Climate reconstruction and variability is a line of research that started three years ago. Interest has been centred on the reconstruction of climate dynamics from historical documents, mainly the reconstruction and characterisation of ENSO and NAO for periods with uncertain chronology. We are investigating sources from the Archivo General de Indias (AGI) in Seville, which is the Archive containing the documents from the Spanish American Colonies, the Archivo del Museo Naval in Madrid and other local museums. First results have been published on the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Earth and Planetary Sciences Letters, Climate Research and WHO Technical reports. Five papers are currently under review.
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 | Financial support has been obtained from the Spanish Government, US National Science Foundation, Galicia Regional Government, Madrid Regional Government, University of Vigo and a number of private Foundations. During recent years, the Department has obtained funds (around 100000 euros) from four projects on climate reconstruction. A similar amount has been obtained for the other research areas. |
| The group acted as local host in an international workshop on climate surface marine data digitisation and preparation held in Toledo (1996), jointly organised by NOAA and the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office. Scientific partnerships are established with the NOAA/CDC, NCAR and INCIHUSA with various common projects financed by NSF and CONICET. |  |
On the archive side, the group has experience on working with the log books held in the Archivo General de Indias (AGI) and Archivo de Museo Naval (ANM). Additionally, the archivist member of the group is now responsible of the imperial postal service ships’ logs at the AGI which form an important part of the proposal.
PROFESSOR RICARDO GARCIA HERRERA
Ricardo García Herrera, born in 1958, is Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the Department of Earth Physics II, in the Complutense University in Madrid. He holds a PhD on time series analysis applied to atmospheric variables. He has been Public Health Director in two different Regional Governments during the period 1986-1995. Since then, his research interests have been in two areas, viz. climate variability and reconstruction and the relationship between atmospheric pollution and health. During this period he has published fifteen scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and currently he participates in six research projects on climatic variability and reconstruction, acting as principal researcher in two of them.
PROFESSOR EMILIANO HERNANDEZ MARTIN
Emiliano Hernández Martín, is Head Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the Department of Earth Physics II in the Complutense University of Madrid. He holds a PhD in atmospheric radiation from Salamanca University. He has more than thirty years teaching experience at the Salamanca and Complutense Universities. He has directed over thirty PhD theses. He has been principal investigator in more than twenty-five research projects financed by Spanish Institutions. He is author of more than seventy scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals. His main fields of interest and expertise are atmospheric dynamics, air pollution modelling and climate variability.
PROFESSOR LUIS GIMENO PRESA
Luis Gimeno Presa, born in 1967, is Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the Vigo University. He holds a PhD in atmospheric pollution modelling from the Complutense University. He has experience as a teacher at the Meteorological Training Centre of the Spanish National Institute of Meteorology. During the last five years he has published more than 30 scientific peer-reviewed papers mainly on atmospheric pollution and climate variability. Currently he acts as principal investigator in three research projects on climatic reconstructions. His main interests are in the areas of climate variability and air pollution.
Dr. ANTONIO LOPEZ GUTIERREZ
Antonio López Gutiérrez, born in 1950, is Archivist at the Archivo General de Indias at Seville, with previous experience at the Simancas National Archive. He holds a PhD on palaeography from Oviedo University. He has been teacher of palaeography at the Seville and Cadiz Universities. His is author of more than twenty books and thirty scientific papers on palaeography. Currently he participates in two co-operative projects with the national Archives of Perú and Paraguay.
The group is completed with: Professor Maria Teresa del Teso from the Department of Earth Physics II at the Complutense University; Professor Julio Díaz Jiménez from the Autonomous University of Madrid and Dr Pedro Ribera Rodríguez from the Department of Applied Physics at the Vigo University.
