Jeff leads a team of scientists to develop better monthly to decadal predictions through scientific understanding of the mechanisms of climate variability. This understanding comes from the published literature and our own original research. Current research topics include investigating the mechanisms by which the stratosphere influences Northern Hemisphere winter atmospheric circulation and the potential for making seasonal drought forecasts, amongst others.

Currently Jeff is working on understanding how the tropical atmosphere might influence the under-representation of predictable signals in mid-latitude atmospheric circulation known as the 'signal-to-noise paradox'. This is an extension of work which showed a role for Tropical Atlantic forcing in the very wet winters of 2013-14 and 2015-16.

Jeff has a personal interest in North Atlantic Ocean variability. Furthering understanding of the model mechanisms that lead to such variability on a range of timescales will help improve the model simulations of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) - a major mode of variability in the climate system.