PostDoc Storyline-based future projections of Arctic climate change at high resolution (m/f/d)

Background
The section Atmospheric Physics at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI)inPotsdam, Germany, invites applications for a PostDoc position available within the recently EU funded H2020 project “Polar Regions in the Earth System (PolarRES)”. PolarRES is an exciting new project involving 21 research institutions from 15 different countries. International collaboration with the PolarRES partners concerning model analysis and dissemination is an integral part of this position.

Specifically, the PostDoc project at AWI is about: Storyline-based future projections of Arctic climate change at high resolution

The climate of the Arctic is changing faster than other parts of the world because of local feedbacks and their response to regional or hemispheric-wide changes. This research position is expected to provide new insights into the response of the Arctic climate to future projected global climate change via the storyline concept. There, the regional response of the Arctic to atmospheric circulation changes will be investigated by dynamically downscaling selected storyline-based global climate model projections at spatial scales of ~10 km. The global climate model projections will be selected through the identification of physically self-consistent, plausible pathways of future circulation changes (e.g. shifts in the storm tracks).

The key tool for this work will be simulations with the atmospheric model ICON (ICOsahedral Nonhydrostatic) applied as limited area model over the Arctic. The project will start with adapting the model for long-term simulations, followed by simulations of the contemporary climate. Those will be evaluated with, for example, observations from the recent Arctic MOSAiC expedition. Finally, storyline-based high-resolution projections for the Arctic are simulated from present-day to 2100. The ICON results will be exploited in the context of the multi-model ensemble of regionally downscaled simulations, which include ~7 models and various realizations. The detailed analysis includes particularly Arctic amplification processes.

Tasks
Overall, the objectives of the work include:

Requirements

• PhD degree in meteorology, physics, or related fields.
• Experience in regional climate modelling or earth-system modelling, and good knowledge in atmospheric physics and dynamics is required.
• Experience in the set-up and performance of regional or global climate model simulations and affinity with numerical model development is expected.
• Knowledge of polar atmospheric processes is of advantage.
• Strong skills in statistical data analysis and scientific programming (R, Python, Fortran, C, Matlab, or similar) are required.
• Excellent level of written and spoken English, and good reporting and presentation skills are expected to disseminate results on international conferences and in leading scientific journals.
  

Further Information

The AWI is characterised by

• our scientific success - excellent research
• collaboration and cooperation - intra-institute, national and international, interdisciplinary
• opportunities to develop – on the job, aiming at other positions and beyond AWI
• a culture of reconciling work and family – an audited and well-supported aspect of our operation
  
• our outstanding research infrastructure – ships, stations, aircraft, laboratories and more
• an international environment – everyday contacts with people from all over the world
• having an influence – fundamental research with social and political relevance
• flat hierarchies – facilitating freedom and responsibility
• exciting science topics, with opportunities also in technology, administration and infrastructure

We look forward to your application!