Background

The post-doctoral researcher/university researcher will be working on the EU’s Destination Earth Climate Change Adaptation Digital Twin Project, Phase 3, where INAR is a contributing member. The Climate DT project is setting up an operational simulation framework that enables to produce bespoke climate and impact-sector information, combining global kilometer-scale climate models (IFS-NEMO, IFS-FESOM, and ICON) in a unified operational workflow producing both multi-decadal climate projections and storyline simulations.

Within Climate DT, the present research task focuses on evaluation of Climate DT simulation quality via direct use of raw Earth observations. The UH team has developed an approach, where simulation data is projected into observation-space quantities while the workflow is active, enabling both run-time reality check and rigorous posterior evaluation of the operational simulations.

The post-doctoral researcher will explore into this virgin evaluation material with hands-on and contribute to creating new insights into the systematic errors of the Climate DT models and how they affect the adaptation information, developing new methods to utilize the unique material, and also maintain and further develop the observation projection workflow system within Climate DT. Tasks may also include integration of new observation types into the system, in addition to the present synoptic surface observations, radiosoundings, and AMSU-A space-based radiance data.

The post-doctoral researcher will work in the dynamic meteorology research group at INAR, led by Professor Heikki Järvinen.

What We Are Looking For

The candidate is expected to:

• be eager to pursue hands-on research using simulation data from the top-tier climate models
• develop observation-based evaluation methods for exposing model biases related to local-scale physical process representations
• think “out-of-the-box”, since there is no precedence for observation-projection in climate modelling
• ideally bring complementary expertise and/or networks that the group may be presently missing

The candidate must have excellent skills in written and spoken English, Python-language and scripting as well as Linux and HPC environments.

Previous experience in model evaluation, statistical data analysis, machine learning are seen as advantages.

A postdoctoral researcher should have a doctoral degree in atmospheric sciences or another relevant field.

A university researcher should have a doctoral degree in atmospheric sciences or another relevant field, evidence of active publication in recent years and demonstration of other scholarly activity, such as evidence of independent research.

The position is initially for two years with a possibility of renewal. The employment contract will include a probationary period of six months.