PhD position: Antarctica physical oceanography

This PhD project will focus on ice shelf water, ocean properties and currents just north of the Antarctica floating ice shelf called Fimbulisen.

This is a fully funded PhD fellowship for a period of 3-4 years, open to all nationalities. Application deadline is 17th October 2024.

Fimbulisen is where the Norwegian research base Troll is located, and some of the activity will take place related to theannual cruises used to supply the base every Antarctic summer. The PhD will focus on processes in front of the ice shelf and under land-fast sea ice through detailed measurements of outflows, frazil ice crystals and platelet ice.

The PhD student will be enrolled at University of Bergen and work closely with scientists at the Norwegian Polar Institute.

Main PhD supervisor will be Professor Lars H. Smedsrud, and co-supervisor will be Kjersti Daae (UiB) and Tore Hattermann (iC3 team member, Norwegian Polar Institute, Tromsø). It is expected that the PhD candidate is willing to spend part of the time at sea and in Tromsø. The PhD candidate will interact with multi-disciplinary researchers in the I-CRYME project, which is affiliated with the iC3 Polar Research Hub.

Job profile:

High-resolution in situ measurements of ice crystals and water column properties are planned, but detection of supercooled waters is challenging. Suspended ice crystals can be detected in standard water samples and may be compared to new acoustic sensing methods. This should be complemented with process-oriented modelling that will provide the first synoptic overview of outflow dynamics in this area.

Applicants must hold a master’s degree or the equivalent in physical oceanography, meteorology, climate dynamics, physics, applied mathematics or related fields. Alternatively, a master thesis must have been submitted for assessment prior to the application deadline.