Do you have a background in tropical meteorology, dynamical meteorology, convection, climate and weather model evaluation, or a related field? Do you want to further your career in one of the UK’s leading research-intensive universities?

STIMULATE (Seasonal Teleconnections to the Indian Monsoon: Understanding the Large-scale Atmospheric Tropical Environment) is a collaborative project between University of Leeds and three other UK universities and is funded under the Met Office Weather and Climate Science for Services Partnership (WCSSP) India Programme and led by the University of Reading. The project’s institutional lead at Leeds is Jennifer Fletcher, working with Co-Investigator John Marsham. The post-holder will join a team of researchers in the STIMULATE project at University of Reading, University of East Anglia, and University of Edinburgh.

The Indian monsoon supplies around 80% of annual rainwater to more than a billion people in South Asia. Understanding seasonal and sub-seasonal variations in the monsoon is vital for society. A key aspect of this is understanding how large-scale variations on sub-seasonal time scales (e.g. active and break spells in the monsoon) affect convection at the local scale. The post-holder will use observation and reanalysis datasets to understand how convection responds to intra-seasonal variability in the monsoon circulation. These results will be compared with the latest Met Office models to judge and understand their performance. STIMULATE will also determine the impact of model errors on the prediction of sub-seasonal to seasonal variations in the monsoon. 

You will have a PhD (or close to obtaining) in a quantitative physical science, such as Physics, Applied Mathematics or Meteorology, and have experience in dynamical and tropical meteorology. You will be experienced in the analysis of large observational and/or numerical model datasets within a programming language such as NCL or Python, have excellent communication skills and a willingness to travel to India.

You will be joining one of the most research active universities for atmospheric science in the UK (Leeds is rated 7^th on the Shanghai global rankings for atmospheric science, and 1^st in the UK). Within the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the Institute for Atmospheric Science (ICAS), you will be joining a large group of tropical meteorologists and dynamicists, who together have an outstanding track record on India, the tropics and convection. Together with the opportunity to work with world-leading scientists in Reading, UEA, Edinburgh, and India, this provides an excellent opportunity for an individual with a long-term interest in this field. 

To explore the post further or for any queries you may have, please contact:

Jennifer Fletcher, Senior Research Scientist

Tel: +44 (0)113 343 3389, email: j.k.fletcher@leeds.ac.uk

Location:  Leeds - Main Campus
Faculty/Service:  Faculty of Environment
School/Institute:  School of Earth and Environment
Category:  Research Grade:  Grade 7
Salary:  £33,199 to £39,609 p.a.  
Due to funding restrictions this post can only be appointed at no higher than £36,261 p.a.
Working Time:  100% - Job share and flexible working arrangements will be considered
Post Type:  Full Time
Contract Type:  Fixed Term (for 18 months due to external funding)  
Closing Date:  Friday 06 September 2019    
Downloads:  Candidate Brief