Research Fellow in Synoptic-scale Dynamics and Forecasting for Africa

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

As part of the major new Global Challenges Research Fund funded African Science for Weather Information and Forecasting Techniques (African-SWIFT) project an exciting opportunity has arisen for a postdoctoral researcher to use convective-scale and lower-resolution ensemble simulations to investigate the predictability of high impact weather in different synoptic environments in West and East Africa. Forecasting high impact weather events on synoptic timescales remains a grand challenge in the atmospheric sciences. The Research Council UK funded GCRF African SWIFT project is a £7.8 million programme of research that seeks to develop sustainable African weather forecasting capability to enhance the livelihood of African populations and improve the economies of their countries. Supervised by Dr Juliane Schwendike, Dr Cathryn Birch, and Prof Doug Parker, you will work closely with project partners at the Met Office to design and produce a set of convective-scale ensemble weather forecasts. You will test African Easterly Wave (AEW) models using the convective-scale ensembles and analyse the relationship between AEWs and convection in parameterized and explicit convection models and develop new theoretical models. You will analyse case-studies and generalise these through climatological work in collaboration with other projects in this region. You will work closely with other postdoctoral researchers within the project to evaluate the skill of the ensembles for weather forecasting. Part of the role will involve providing mentoring to earlier career researchers in Africa and will include a contribution to running summer schools and teaching in workshops.You will have (orbe close to obtaining) a PhD in a quantitative physical science, such asPhysics, Applied Mathematics or Meteorology, and have experience in the use oflarge observational and/or numerical model datasets. You will be experienced inprogramming on a Unix/Linux operating system, in data analysis within aprogramming language such as Python, and have excellent communication skills.

To explore the post further or for any queries you may have, please contact: Dr Cathryn Birch, University Academic Fellow Tel: +44 (0)113 343 9831, email: C.E.Birch@leeds.ac.uk