We are seeking a talented and creative postdoctoral researcher to work on cloud feedbacks using a hierarchy of climate models and physical theory. Candidates should have expertise in analysing and running climate model simulations. The position is initially available for two years, with the possibility of a 1-year extension.

Funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, the Circulation, Cloud and Climate Sensitivity project (“CIRCULATES”) project will combine new observations with a hierarchy of model simulations to significantly advance our understanding and quantification of the radiative feedbacks associated with tropical and subtropical low clouds. CIRCULATES will focus on the coupling between clouds, radiation, the large-scale circulation and surface and boundary layer processes. The hierarchy of models deployed will range from high-resolution large eddy simulations and cloud resolving models, through idealised configurations of a global model, to full-complexity climate models used in international assessments of climate sensitivity. The idealised global model will be used to test ideas for new ways of parameterising cloud processes. The new understanding developed will be used with observations derived from remote sensing and re-analysis products to derive a collection of new process-based metrics for climate models. Such metrics may be combined with similar metrics of the radiative effects of other clouds to quantify and reduce uncertainty in climate sensitivity.

You will join the CIRCULATES project at the University of St Andrews, as part of a larger team led by University of Exeter. You will use novel high resolution cloud-resolving simulations to investigate the effects of atmospheric circulation on cloud feedbacks in tropical and sub-tropical regimes. Using a collection of simulations run at resolutions of 1.5 and 4km, you will build a comprehensive understanding of how cloud feedbacks are coupled to circulations of various horizontal scales and at all vertical levels. The simulations and analyses will deliver a comprehensive assessment of how convective-scale dynamics control cloud feedbacks and will establish a robust understanding of cloud-circulation coupling at high resolution, laying the foundation for the analysis and interpretation of cloud feedbacks in the new generation of global cloud-resolving models that are now coming online.

You will have:

• A PhD (or shortly expected to achieve) or equivalent in physical or mathematical sciences;

• An understanding of physical processes relating to climate and the atmospheric circulation;

• Experience of analysing and running output of weather or climate models;

• Good programming skills in Python or another appropriate data processing and visualisation language.

See the “Key Duties and Responsibilities” section below for a full list of requirements. Further details are available on request.

Informal enquiries can be addressed to CIRCULATES Co-Investigator Dr Michael Byrne mpb20@st-andrews.ac.uk

The University is committed to equality for all, demonstrated through our working on diversity awards (ECU Athena SWAN/Race Charters; Carer Positive; LGBT Charter; and Stonewall). More details can be found at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/hr/edi/diversityawards/.

Further Particulars: AR2315MR FPs.doc

School of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Salary: £33,797 - £36,916 per annum
Fixed Term: 2 years
Start: To be mutually agreed