Do you have a background in tropical meteorology, dynamical meteorology, weather forecasting, convection, 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?

As part of the Weather and Climate for Science Services Partnership (WCSSP) Southeast Asia project called Tropical Cyclone Tracks (TCtracks), funded through the Met Office Newton Fund, an exciting opportunity has arisen for a research assistant to use convective-scale and global-scale Met Office Unified Model (MetUM) ensemble simulations and observations to investigate what determines the tracks of tropical cyclones (TCs) in both types of simulations.

Tropical cyclones that make landfall are one of the most costly and deadly atmospheric phenomena. TCs cause loss of life and enormous amounts of damage due to their destructive winds, heavy precipitation and effects on the sea, such as storm surges. 

Supervised by Dr Juliane Schwendike, Dr Andrew Ross, and Dr Stephen Griffiths, you will investigate the differences between tracks in the global and convection-permitting (CP) MetUM forecasts and why they occur for some storms and not for other storms. This is important for forecasters since they use these forecasts to make decisions about the time and location of landfall and the intensity of the storm. Therefore, this project aims to (1) investigate how the environment is impacting the TC tracks in the global and CP MetUM ensemble simulations, and (2) investigate why there are differences between the global and CP ensemble simulations in some cases. Are these differences due to differences in the environment or due to differences in the storm size and depth between the global and CP simulations?

You will have an undergraduate or master’s degree in Maths, Physics, Meteorology or a closely allied discipline, you may also have a PhD or be close to finishing your PhD in a quantitative physical science, and have experience in dynamical or tropical meteorology. You will be experienced in the analysis of large observational and/or numerical model datasets using a programming language such as Python, and have excellent written and oral communication skills.

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

Juliane Schwendike, Lecturer in Meteorology
Tel: +44 (0)113 343 1054, email: j.schwendike@leeds.ac.uk

Location: Leeds - Main Campus
Faculty/Service: Faculty of Environment
School/Institute: School of Earth and Environment
Category: Research
Grade: Grade 6
Salary: £27,511 to £32,817 p.a.
Post Type: Full Time
Contract Type: Fixed Term (Fixed-term until 31 March 2020 due to external funding)
Closing Date: Monday 25 November 2019
Interview Date: See advert
Downloads: Candidate Brief