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Today's Topics:
1. NCEO Edinburgh, Leicester, Reading and PML PhD's available,
UK (Roger Brugge)
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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2013 19:07:50 +0000
From: "Roger Brugge" <r.brugge@reading.ac.uk>
Subject: [Met-jobs] NCEO Edinburgh, Leicester, Reading and PML PhD's
available, UK
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There are 4 new NCEO PhDs available to start in 2014, plus another funded by PML under the supervision of Jamie Shutler which has an application closing date of 10 January 2014. Here are all the details:
1. PhD Studentship at the University of Edinburgh: Megacities and atmospheric chemistry
Start date: March 2014 or before.
This PhD studentship will focus on understanding the links between emissions, atmospheric transport and chemistry on determining atmospheric composition over and downwind of a megacity. The United Nations define a megacity as a metropolitan area with a total population in excess of ten million people. Megacities often result in challenging chemical environments to study because of the mix of biogenic, anthropogenic, and pyrogenic gases and aerosol, which is typically a result of urban areas progressively encroaching on natural ecosystems. We will likely focus on a Megacity within India or Brazil, drawing on ongoing activities with colleagues in those countries.
The main study tools will be the GEOS-Chem atmospheric chemistry transport model and its adjoint, which are ongoing activities within the associated research community. We will initially focus on using data available from the European MetOp satellites. The student will focus on the mobile, industrial, and energy sectors that are directly related to rapid urbanization.
Research questions include: What controls the observed variability of ozone over a megacity and its surrounding region? What atmospheric modes of variability can be reliably observed by the space-borne data? Based on our current understanding of sectoral emissions what are the most effective mitigation strategies to control air quality?
The successful candidate will join an active research group who study the troposphere using models, data, and theory: www.palmergroup.org<http://www.palmergroup.org>.
More information on the project is available at
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/postgraduate/PhD/getDocument?SerialNo=819
The PhD is funded by the NERC National Centre for Earth Observation. Stipend and fees are only available to UK citizens; and citizens of EU member states are only eligible for fees. See http://www.nerc.ac.uk/funding/available/postgrad/eligibility.asp
Contact paul.palmer@ed.ac.uk<mailto:paul.palmer@ed.ac.uk>
2. University of Leicester:
Sensitivity of model African isoprene emissions to assimilation of land surface temperatures
Supervisors: Professor John Remedios and Dr. Michael Barkley (Leicester); Dr. Gary Hayman (CEH)
Project summary
Isoprene emission from plants is one of the most significant ?natural? couplings of land surface and atmosphere compositions, isoprene playing a critical role in atmospheric chemistry. It depends strongly on surface temperature giving a fascinating interaction between climate change, plant activity and the atmosphere.
This project will use the latest satellite data for land surface temperature and soil moisture to drive the Jules land surface model which has just had appropriate emission schemes implemented in it. Importing the emissions into an atmosphere model will allow comparisons with satellite data for atmosphere gases. We will focus on Africa, which has not been well studied in this context. The student will obtain excellent exposure to the Physics of Earth Observation and climate-land models.
The EOS group are part of the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) who are sponsoring this PhD. We work with the major international space agencies, particularly the European Space Agency, and with major UK modelling groups.
Detailed Project description
Isoprene emissions to the atmosphere represent an exciting and challenging problem for land-atmosphere coupling. Arguably isoprene, as the dominant biogenic volatile organic (BVOC) emitted from vegetation (plant foliage), is one of the most significant ?natural? couplings for atmospheric chemistry with notable climate change sensitivity. Isoprene plays a critical role in global atmospheric chemistry, through its impact on tropospheric ozone and its precursor role in the formation of secondary organic aerosol. Several studies (Sanderson et al, 2003; Zheng and Pyle, 2003) have performed preliminary estimates of climate-chemistry sensitivity to changes in isoprene emissions.
This PhD project focuses particularly on one primary aspect of the isoprene photosynthetic emission mechanisms namely the strong dependence of emissions on leaf temperature and on land surface parameters such as soil moisture. The objective is to test the sensitivity of model isoprene emissions to the methodologies for specifying leaf temperature and soil moisture, and in particular to land surface temperatures assimilated into the JULES model. This sensitivity will provide a very good uncertainty estimate for current projections of isoprene-ozone climate-chemistry feedback.
Plant species which emit isoprene do so largely as a function of light and leaf temperature, according to their foliage characteristics (leaf area and canopy structure). At the leaf-level current empirical and process-based emission algorithms describe isoprene emission variability well, however, at canopy-to-ecosystem scales isoprene emissions are much harder to model owing to uncertainties in plant/species distribution and because the rate of emissions is also modulated by the current and past environmental conditions. A key environmental control that remains largely unstudied is the effect of water stress on the emission rates, especially at ecosystem to regional scales. Plants? prolonged drought has significant effects. On a global scale, including the influence of soil moisture within the emission model algorithms can decrease annual emissions by 20%, more so regionally.
New land surface temperature (LST) data sets from satellite (SEVIRI; geostationary sensor) could provide a step change in our understanding of this problem for Africa. Here, diurnally varying temperature information (with error characterisation) is available in a critical region with strong gradients in anticipated isoprene emissions from tropical forest to semi-arid Sahel regions. NCEO scientists have worked on assimilation of LST with SEVIRI (for carbon and soil moisture; Ghent ), new assimilation schemes for JULES and studies of moisture fluxes in the Sahel (Taylor et al, 2011). An isoprene emission for JULES is also newly available. Hence a PhD project in this area can take advantage of the latest developments in land-surface assimilation and model capabilities with atmospheric impact.
The student will 1) test the impact on model canopy temperatures of assimilating SEVIRI LST data into JULES in comparison to off-line estimates of canopy temperature; 2) use a standard JULES set-up with isoprene scheme and an offline Megan scheme (Guenther et al, 2006; driven directly by estimated leaf temperatures) to compare African isoprene emissions calculated with assimilated LST and also with only meteorological forcing; 3) the student will perform first order calculations with a coupled land-atmosphere model (UKCA) to deduce whether satellite measurements of gases such as formaldehyde (current NCEO PhD project) can distinguish these effects.
The student will benefit from very good training in EO techniques/models with an experienced NCEO academic team; Michael Barkley provides additional expert knowledge of isoprene chemistry, satellite observations and models. The PhD student will benefit from interaction with land surface scientists, atmosphere scientists and data assimilation experts and consequent skill development.
Refs: Guenther et al, ACP, 2006; Ghent et al, JGR, 2010; Taylor et al, Nature Geosciences, 2011; Sanderson et al, GRL, 2003; Zheng and Pyle, GRL, 2003.
3. Plymouth Marine Laboratory and University of Reading
Supervisors: Dr Stefano Ciavatta and Dr Torres (PML), Prof Peter Jan van Leeuwen (Reading)
Project title: Advancing marine ecosystem understanding
The objective of this PhD is to implement and apply for the first time the novel particle filter method with a state-of-the-art biogeochemical model (the European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model, ERSEM, see e.g. [Blackford et al., 2004]), for advancing our understanding and predictions of crucial marine ecosystem processes (e.g. eutrophication and carbon cycling).
The assimilation scheme will be initially set-up in a simple 0-Dimensional (0D) model configuration and tested in twin-experiments (i.e. with artificial test data). Subsequently, the PhD student will evaluate the applicability and performance of the assimilation scheme with available large scale models of marine ecosystems (e.g. [Wakelin et al., 2012]) and with real biogeochemical data (e.g. chlorophyll observations from satellite and in situ data).
Advanced statistical techniques for model output analysis and uncertainty assessment (e.g. [Saux Picart et al., 2011]) will be applied to evaluate the assimilation performance in improving the estimation of biogeochemical variables and processes in marine ecosystems.
Contact: Stefano Ciavatta <avab@pml.ac.uk><mailto:avab@pml.ac.uk> or Peter Jan van Leeuwen <p.j.vanleeuwen@reading.ac.uk><mailto:p.j.vanleeuwen@reading.ac.uk>
4. Plymouth Marine Laboratory and University of Reading
Supervisors: Dr Giorgio Dall?Olmo (PML), Prof Keith Haines (Reading)
Project title: Investigating the variability of the ocean biological carbon pump by means of novel observation-based 3D biogeochemical fields.
This PhD will expand the work programme towards the integrated use of satellite data and Argo floats mounting novel biogeochemical sensors.
Contact: Giorgio dall'Olmo <gdal@pml.ac.uk><mailto:gdal@pml.ac.uk> or keith haines <k.haines@reading.ac.uk><mailto:k.haines@reading.ac.uk>
In addition:
PhD available at PML:
PhD studentship: ?Coastal-eye? ? monitoring coastal waters using a lightweight UAV<http://www.findaphd.com/search/ProjectDetails.aspx?PJID=49655>
Links to the advert:
http://www.findaphd.com/search/ProjectDetails.aspx?PJID=49655
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/studying/funding/award/?id=1325
This PhD is part of an 'open call' - applicants should aim to submit a strong CV and application form.
Application deadline 10th January 2014.
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