Post-doctoral Research Associate in Global Glacier Modelling

Job Purpose:

The world’s mountains store and release frozen water when it is most valuable, as summer meltwater in the growing season. This service is an extraordinary generator of wealth and well-being, sustaining a sixth of the global population and a quarter of global GDP, but is highly vulnerable to climate change. Over the next 30 years, the Alps, Western North America, Himalayas and Andes will lose 10-40% of their snow, hundreds of cubic kilometres of summer water supply, and by end of century, mountain glaciers will lose 20-60% of their ice. To map our mountain water resources and predict their future, we must rely on models of snowfall, seasonal snowpacks, glacier gains and losses, and river runoff. The skill of these models is, however, fundamentally limited by the quality and availability of observations needed to test and develop them, and the mountain cryosphere is so large, varied and inhospitable that we lack many of these key observations. The thickness of only 6 of 41,000 glaciers has been surveyed in the Himalayan headwaters of the Brahmaputra, Indus and Ganges basins, so the lifespan of a water resource used by 800 million people remains unpredictable.

You will help to develop an improved scheme for representing surface mass balance within the Open Global Glacier Model (OGGM), by working with another research scientist to integrate with the Factorial Snowpack Model (FSM), in turn forced by high-resolution climate data. Additionally you will support Co-I Goldberg in providing improved estimates of current glacier thickness using OGGM tools coupled with in-situ thickness measurements.

You will work as part of a wider UK team within the NERC project The Big Thaw: gauging the past, present and future of our mountain water resources (TBT), which is led by the British Antarctic Survey and involves researchers in CEH, Edinburgh, Leeds and Birmingham.

Main responsibilities:

• Develop coupling scheme with FSM, determining how best to pass data between the models in order to represent an accurate energy balance model for glacier ablation and accumulation –30 % of time
  • Interface with Prof R Essery and C Menard (Edinburgh) who will lead snow modelling efforts for TBT
  • Configure OGGM for TBT target catchments in High Mountain Asia
  • Engage with BAS atmospheric modellers for climate forcings
• Analysis of own model outputs, model evaluation against observations obtained within TBT, and comparison against other methods within OGGM – 25% of time
  • This work will be in close collaboration with the fieldwork components of the TBT team
• Identification and quantification of main model uncertainties – 20% of time
• Communication of findings to the scientific community and public: Preparation of manuscripts and presentations that report project results – 20% of time
  • In collaboration with members of the TBT team
• Provide guidance in the use of OGGM and the understanding of mountain glacier modelling to the School of GeoScience community, through assisting in the supervision of undergraduate dissertations and mentoring of PhD students in related fields – 5% of time

You will work most directly with Dan Goldberg, but also with the rest of the TBT team, in particular with C Menard, the Edinburgh-based snow modeller and FSM expert.

Planning & Organising:

The general plan and organisation of research will be agreed with Dr Goldberg and progress will be discussed at regular weekly meetings, and biweekly/monthly meetings with the larger Edinburgh team (Goldberg, Essery, Menard). The post holder will also need to liaise directly with the other researchers within the TBT network. The PDRA is expected to be pro-active in formulating and executing the research and communicating results to team members and the wider community.

In addition, the development outputs of the project and the PDRA post will be made available to the larger mountain glacier modelling community and enable improved forecasts and understanding of glacier-climate evolution. To ensure impact of these outputs, changes to the OGGM code base should be communicated with the OGGM development team (F Maussion, Project Partner)

Finally, the postholder will plan for career progression by developing ideas for independent fellowship proposals (i.e. NERC, FLF) in line with the aims of the project and/or within the field of glaciology, with support from Dr Goldberg and other team members.

Problem Solving:

You will have, and/or will need to develop:

• Proficiency at setting up, efficiently and effectively using, and making changes to the OGGM model to address project-specific research questions.
• Expertise in formatting climate output into input sets for OGGM and FSM.
• Detailed process understanding of the main processes that control surface mass balance of mountain glaciers.

Decision Making:

• Setting up and analysing model results requires careful consideration of multiple options to optimise, for example, efficiency, scientific completeness, and handling of major sources of uncertainty.
• You will need to be prepared to make decisions about various aspects of the project, sometimes independently, and sometimes through discussion with other members of the team.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

Essential

• A PhD (or a PhD close to completion) in a relevant quantitative scientific discipline.
• Peer reviewed publications in a relevant field.
• Ability to work efficiently both independently and collaboratively as part of a team.
• Experience in analysing and interpreting model/observational data, including assessment of uncertainties.
• Experience with Python (essential) and ability to learn other programming languages (e.g. Fortran), as well as familiarity with Linux.
• Excellent organisational and communication skills.
• Excellent skills in writing for academic and/or other audiences.
• Excellent oral presentation skills.

Desirable

• Experience in developing and running a global glacier model.
• Experience developing for a large open source code with multiple developers.