Segnaliamo una posizione di Dottorato in “Chasing convective storm evolution with swarms
of space-borne Ka-band radars” presso il Politecnico di Torino inserito nello IUSS PAVIA PhD program in Sustainable Development and Climate change:

Deep convection has a profound influence on Earth's climate system.
Updraft plumes in deep convective clouds are in the tropics the
principal pathway by which heat, moisture, mass and trace gases are
transported into the upper atmosphere. Observations of the occurrence
and magnitude of vertical transport in deep convection are simply not
available over the tropical oceans and sparsely available over land.
Monthly to seasonal prediction of weather is heavily influenced by the
role of deep convection. Convection is therefore central to prediction
of severe weather both at sub-seasonal and seasonal time scales. The
sign and nature of changes to convective storms in a warming climate are
also difficult to predict. While moisture convergence is expected to
increase at about 7% per degree of warming following the
Clausius‐Clapeyron law, storms are likely to become deeper and
narrower and to produce heavier precipitation at a rate which is still
debated. It also remains unclear whether or not the increased transports
will result in more moistening of the high troposphere and more cirrus
clouds or will be compensated by heavier precipitation. Ground-breaking
novel observations of convective clouds are expected from the NASA’s
Earth Venture Program Investigation of Convective Updrafts (INCUS)
mission
(https://www.Nasa.Gov/press-release/nasa-selects-new-mission-to-study-storms-impacts-on-climate-models) with the launch (2027) in low Earth orbit of a constellation of
satellites equipped with Ka-band (35 GHz) radars and microwave
radiometers in close formation (Dt separation of the order of few
minutes). This observing system will allow to globally observe the
explosive evolution of storms as never done before and should therefore
provide new observables to test the realism of convection-permitting
cloud resolving models. These models will represent the backbone of
future operational weather forecast models, which are currently run at
or near 5 km but will soon move to finer resolution capable of resolving
convection.

Scope of the PhD is to perform ancillary studies in preparation of the
mission with three main goals: 1) To simulate the radar and radiometer
measurements by using fine temporal (sub-minute) and spatial (sub-km)
resolution outputs from the WRF model. The study will capitalize on
advanced radar and radiometer simulators (accounting for the viewing
geometry, the radar sensitivity, the antenna pattern, the pulse
compression schemes, etc) developed in the past ten years within the
research team. 2) To investigate the sensitivity of the INCUS
measurements to the different parametrizations and schemes of the WRF
model). Stochastic schemes are capable to represent model uncertainty in
ensemble simulations by applying a small perturbation at every time step
to each member and very suitable for the convective clouds scale studies
of this project 3) To refine algorithms for the derivation of
convective-related quantities (updrafts, condensed mass vertical fluxes)
based on the Dt measurements (collaboration with NASA INCUS PI, Prof. S.
Van den Heever at Colorado State University).

Research team and environment

This project offers an excellent opportunity to develop and apply novel
radar techniques to remote sensing of clouds and precipitation. The
student will be trained in a wide range of topics including radar
meteorology, cloud physics, radiative transfer and precipitation remote
sensing. The PhD student will be supervised by Prof. A. Battaglia,
expert in spaceborne radars and forward modelling of space-borne
microwave sensors. The PhD student will be able to collaborate with the
international INCUS team when refining the algorithms for the
characterization of convection (specifically there will be weekly
teleconferences with the INCUS PI and Prof. Kollias at Stony Brook, City
College of New York). The student will benefit from the collaboration
with the CIMA foundation group led by Dr. A. Parodi who will provide
consolidated experience in the execution of cloud-resolving numerical
experiments at kilometric scale by combining different microphysics and
radiative schemes as well by using stochastic parameterization schemes.

Suggested skills

Applicants should have a science or engineering degree. Knowledge of
meteorology would be beneficial. Programming skills in
matlab/idl/Python/C/Java/C++ and knowledge of radar systems, signal
processing and numerical modelling could also be beneficial. Team
working attitude and excellent knowledge of spoken and written English
are highly desirable.

To apply:
https://www.phd-sdc.it/ and follow tab Apply. Deadline 31/7/2022.

For any query please contact:

Alessandro Battaglia

alessandro_battaglia@polito.it