Vi segnaliamo il bando per l’assegnazione di due distinte Posizioni PhD presso l’Università di Trento. Outline:Particulate matter, composed either of biogenic or abiogenic substances, plays a crucial role in the environment, affecting air quality, atmospheric radiation budgets, propagation of species, ecosystems’ dynamics, human health, nucleation processes in clouds, and hence precipitation.Understanding the transport of such substances over mountainous terrain is more complicated than over flat areas due to the complexity and variety of the wind structures found over mountains. In particular, thermally driven slope winds, promoted by daytime heating and nighttime cooling of slopes, offer preferred flow patterns, which may variously combine with convection in the upper atmosphere. Also, turbulence associated with these flows plays a crucial role in the uptake, diffusion and deposition of these substances.The candidate will develop and apply new concepts, derived from recent advances in our understanding of the above winds, to existing mathematical and numerical models, in order to improve their capability of reproducing the above transport processes in a variety of situations. Both Eulerian and Lagrangian approaches will be tested. The latter will include both forward- and back-trajectories. Comparison with data from field measurements will allow suitable validation of the models.The candidate will have the opportunity to cooperate within the project “DECIPHER – Disentangling mechanisms controlling atmospheric transport and mixing processes over mountain areas at different space- and timescales” under the international cooperation programme “TEAMx – Multi-scale transport and exchange processes in the atmosphere over mountains – programme and experiment” and to participate in the field campaigns foreseen as part of the project.The grant is mostly supported by the Environmental Agency of the Autonomous Province of Trento.The candidate will have the opportunity to cooperate with the Agency. Outline:Seasonal meteorological forecasting has gained increasing attention in recent years, due to its numerous potential applications to support decision-making in various sectors. These forecasts, typically extending for several months, bridge the gap between long-term climate projections and traditional short-term weather forecasts. The present project aims to develop and evaluate advanced methodologies and tools to improve the possibility of applying seasonal meteorological forecasts to support water resource management and optimize hydroelectric energy production in complex terrain regions. The project will first focus on the evaluation of the performance of different seasonal weather forecast products distributed by various operational centers (e.g., ECMWF, GFS, DWD,…) at different lead times (1 to 7 months), with a particular focus on the Alpine region. Then, different downscaling techniques will be tested to improve the quality of the predictions, focusing in particular on the variables mainly affecting the availability of the water resource (e.g., precipitation, temperature). It is, in fact, well known that seasonal forecasts can display large errors, especially over complex terrain, hindering the possibility of using these products for practical applications. Finally, the relations between large-scale teleconnection indices (e.g., North Atlantic Oscillation – NAO, Scandinavian pattern – SCAND, East Atlantic/West Russia – EAWR), typically displaying higher predictability, and local meteorological conditions will be evaluated, to explore the possibility of exploiting these relations to improve seasonal forecasts of local variables. Il progetto di ricerca è sviluppato in collaborazione con Hydro Dolomiti Energia Srl, la principale azienda di produzione idroelettrica in Trentino. Di seguito, il bando.
