L’Istituto di Scienze dell’Atmosfera e del Clima del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Bologna, Italia) aprirà un posizione per un assegno di ricerca di 1 anno all’interno del progetto SENTINEL sulla comprensione del ruolo della variabilità climatica e della perdita di ghiaccio marino artico, sulla circolazione atmosferica e sui cambiamenti delle precipitazioni nell’Artico.

Per maggiori informazioni, o se sei interessato a candidarti, contatta il Dott. Giuseppe Zappa (g.zappa@isac.cnr.it).

Position opening to work on the SENTINEL project
The Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Research Council of Italy
(CNR-ISAC) will be opening a 1-year research position on understanding Arctic precipitation in
a changing climate.
The Arctic is a major “hot-spot” of climate change, with a dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice being
unprecedented over the last three decades. Precipitation is also increasing, but direct
observations are sparse and large internal climate variability is superimposed on the signal of
climate change. Ice cores thus provide complementary information on ongoing hydro-climate
changes. In this project we will focus on a sudden shift in the heavy isotopes of oxygen,
reflecting a change in moisture sources, which has been detected in an ice core taken from
Svalbard, and for which an explanation is still missing. We will aim to understand the causes of
this shift, by exploring the role played by the regional loss of sea ice, anthropogenic warming,
and large-scale multi-decadal atmospheric circulation changes. The post-holder will be involved
in formulating different hypotheses and in testing them by applying a range of techniques, such
as retro-trajectories, weather regimes or machine-learning approaches, to atmospheric
reanalysis and climate model simulations.
This post is part of the SENTINEL project, and the post-holder will join a team of scientists from
CNR (National Research Council of Italy), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and ENEA (Italian
National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development).
• Goal: Understanding changes in Arctic hydro-climate.
• Motivation to join a multi-disciplinary team working on Arctic climate change.
• Degree: physics, meteorology, astrophysics, environmental sciences, informatics or
engineering. Ideally, a PhD in a relevant subject.
• Competences: Basic knowledge in meteorology and/or climate science. Desirable,
but not compulsory:
o Experience in the analysis of climate datasets, e.g. atmospheric
reanalysis/CMIP.
o Knowledge of atmosphere-ocean processes in the Arctic.
o Experience with machine learning algorithms, e.g. auto-encoders.
• Coding: Programming languages, e.g. Python or MatLAB.
• Deadline for application: To be announced.
• Salary level: ~1400 to 1600€ per month (net) depending on qualifications.
• Starting date: June/July or as soon as possible before December 2023.
• Location: CNR-ISAC, Bologna, Italy (flexibility can be agreed)