Postdoctoral Research Associate in Greenland Ice Sheet-ocean interaction

The University of Edinburgh - College of Science and Engineering / School of Geosciences

Full-time: 35 hours per week

Fixed-term: for 2.5 years

The Opportunity:

We seek a 2.5-year postdoctoral research associate (PDRA) to work within the Greenland ice-ocean focus group of the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project 7 (ISMIP7), funded by the Heising-Simons Foundation.

The overall aim of ISMIP7 is to establish consensus estimates of the sea level rise contribution from ice sheet change over the coming decades and centuries. The role of the Greenland ice-ocean focus group is to develop an experimental protocol that best represents the complex processes occurring at the ice sheet’s marine margins, to deliver the resulting ocean boundary conditions in a format that is implementable by ice sheet models, and to work to understand the simulation results to better quantify the influence of the ocean on Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss.

The PDRA will take a leading role in delivering these aims, in particular creating the ocean boundary conditions needed to run past and future simulations of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and analysing how ocean forcing of the Greenland Ice Sheet has evolved and may evolve over the coming decades and centuries. This will largely involve working with climate model output but may also include ice sheet and ocean observations depending on the precise focus.

The PDRA will work primarily at the University of Edinburgh with Donald Slater, to whom informal enquiries may be directed, but also interfacing closely with other members of the focus group based elsewhere. The anticipated start date is 1 September 2026, but some flexibility can be offered.

This post is full time; however, we are open to considering flexible working patterns and requests for hybrid working (on a non-contractual basis) that combines a mix of remote and regular on-campus working.