Researcher in atmospheric composition and air quality modelling at climate scales (F/M)

Job title:

Researcher in atmospheric composition and air quality modelling at climate scales (F/M)

Company:

Météo France

Job description

As a public weather and climate expert, Météo-France is at your side to contribute to your day-to-day safety and help you make the best decisions in a changing climate. Faced with dangerous weather episodes that are even more intense and more frequent as a result of climate change, our missions in the service of your safety are crucial. We mobilize our expertise and our scientific and technological excellence to help you anticipate and adapt to challenging weather and climate phenomena.
Find us online: https://meteofrance.com/carte-didentite-de-meteo-france
Joining Météo France means joining a multi-site organization, located in France, overseas, etc. Météo-France is organized into central and inter-regional divisions. Below is a presentation of the department you could join:
The DESR brings together the research entities of Météo-France (mainly CNRM, SAFIRE and LACy), the National School of Meteorology (ENM) and the shared administrative and IT support services (PGA).
The CNRM is a Joint Research Unit (UMR 3589, www.umr-cnrm.fr) under the joint supervision of Météo-France and the CNRS. The CNRM conducts research in the field of meteorology and climate, from the observation, understanding and modelling of processes to the development of weather forecasting and climate projection systems that can be transferred to Météo-France’s operational services.
The person recruited will join the COMETS team (Chemistry: Observation and Modelling of thE Troposphere and Stratosphere, https://www.umr-cnrm.fr/spip.php?article371&lang=en) of the CNRM’s Groupe de Modélisation Grande Echelle et Climat (GMGEC), whose research activities focus on the study of the chemical composition (reactive gases, aerosols, greenhouse gases) of the troposphere and stratosphere, from global to regional scales.
Information related to the project
The recruitment is part of the TRACCS (TRAnsforming Climate modelling for Climate Services, https://pepr-traccs.fr/) research programme, which brings together the French climate modelling community. The programme’s activities cover the fundamental understanding of climate change and its impacts, and extend to the development of prototype climate services co-constructed by stakeholders and climate modelling experts. The aim is to accelerate the development of climate models to meet society’s expectations in terms of climate action, particularly in the area of adaptation to climate change.
The programme is organised into 10 targeted projects and a governance project, and will be supplemented by projects in response to calls for tender. It has been allocated €51 million over 10 years. It is co-piloted by CNRS and Météo-France, with 7 other academic partners. The activities of the governance project and the targeted projects will be carried out mainly in the Paris region (laboratories of the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL)), in Toulouse (CNRM and other Météo-France entities, CERFACS) and in Grenoble (Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement (IGE)).
The present position is part of the TRACCS-PC10-LOCALISING (https://pepr-traccs.fr/projet/pc10-localising/) project, which aims to explore and define how best to provide accurate and reliable local climate information in support of adaptation strategies. To achieve this, LOCALISING is developing fully coupled, multi-component models of local climate systems, aiming to represent the climate at kilometre and hour scales, and combining dynamic models and statistical approaches to characterise uncertainty at local scales. A number of technical and scientific challenges will have to be overcome in order to achieve the project’s ambitious objectives:(1) increase the resolution of climate models and resolve the resulting bottlenecks,
(2) develop models to represent new local processes and feedbacks at these higher resolutions,
(3) study the key physical, chemical and biogeochemical processes at the local scale in order to gain a better understanding of climate phenomena, in particular the extremes that are relevant to society,
(4) take advantage of emerging machine learning techniques to quantify uncertainty at lower cost, by developing new statistical and hybrid downscaling techniques,
(5) ensure the consistency of climate information throughout the modelling chain, from global climate models to fine-scale climate data,
(6) ensure the transportability of the methods developed throughout the world and support a wide range of users.Objectives
The person recruited will be responsible for studying the evolution, in the context of climate change, of air quality and more generally of the chemical composition of the atmosphere in the troposphere at very high resolution.
This contribution to the LOCALISING project has a number of objectives. The first is to describe the distribution of the main atmospheric pollutants in as much detail as possible. To this end, the person recruited will be responsible for implementing a complete chemistry-aerosol scheme including the representation of secondary aerosols (organic and inorganic) in a high-resolution regional climate model. The implementation of such a tool, including an explicit resolution of atmospheric convection, will then make it possible to address various scientific questions at the climate scale. Preliminary work will focus on the establishment of possibly dynamic emission inventories adapted to city issues.
The impact of climate change on air quality, particularly in cities, and the resulting need for adaptation will then be analysed in depth. Finally, this work could look at more complex interactions. This could involve studying the evolution of biogenic emissions in a changing climate, the consequences in terms of secondary organic aerosols formation and, beyond that, the feedbacks on the local climate, or documenting the possible amplification of pollution peaks in urban heat islands and the associated future risks.
Activities
The work proposed in this position will consist of :

• Implementing in the limited-area climate model CNRM-AROME (Caillaud et al. 2021) a complete chemistry-aerosol scheme including the representation of organic and inorganic secondary aerosols. The management of both dynamic emissions and emissions provided by inventories via the SURFEX externalised surface module (Masson et al. 2013) will also require specific developments and will need to be validated.
• Setting up and running climate simulations of the present and future climate for certain warming levels to be defined with this ‘atmospheric composition’ configuration of the CNRM-AROME model on the Météo-France supercomputers. These simulations will have to be evaluated and validated against various reference data sets (in-situ observations, ground measurements, satellite products, reanalyses, etc.).
• Analysing the impact of climate change on air quality, particularly in cities. More specific studies aiming at quantifying the impact of adaptation strategies on air quality (e.g. electrification of the car fleet, greening of cities and consequences in terms of ozone and production of fine particles by oxidation of volatile organic compounds emitted by vegetation, etc.) or documenting the possible amplification of pollution peaks in urban heat islands could be carried out.
• Studying the feedback between urban pollution and local climate.
• Testing different approaches in order to reduce the cost of the ‘atmospheric composition’ component of this CNRM-AROME configuration.Developing internal collaborations with other CNRM teams, in particular with the various users of the AROME model, and external collaborations with the LOCALISING project partners.
• Disseminating research results by publishing them in peer-reviewed journals and by participating in conferences, general assemblies and meetings of the LOCALISING project and the TRACCS programme.
• Maintaining a scientific watch on developments in climate modelling of atmospheric composition.

General knowledge

• The person recruited must have a PhD thesis in the field of atmospheric composition.
• Experience in numerical modelling is required. More specific experience in kilometre-scale air quality modelling and/or air quality-climate interactions would also be appreciated.

Technical skills

• Knowledge of Fortran
• Knowledge of scientific analysis tools (e.g. Python, ncl, ferret…)
• Familiarity with source code management tools (e.g. git)
• Familiarity with the Unix environment
• Knowledge of tools for handling files in NetCDF format (nco, cdo, etc.)

Skills

• Autonomy and organisational skills
• Rigour in scientific development and analysis
• Motivation and scientific curiosity
• Spoken and written English at B2 level minimum

Personal skills

• Good interpersonal skills and ability to work as part of a team
• Availability and responsiveness

Why join us?
Embark on a stimulating adventure in the service of all, alongside men and women committed to the daily challenges posed to our society by the weather and climate. And enjoy the following benefits: flexible working hours, RTT, telecommuting, administrative restaurant or luncheon voucher, 75% contribution to public transport, contribution to health insurance, sports and cultural associations depending on the site (climbing, gym, pottery, theater, etc.).
Other benefits await you, come and discover them!

Expected salary

€41640 per year

Location

Toulouse

Job date

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 02:24:56 GMT

To help us track our recruitment effort, please indicate in your email/cover letter where (vacanciesin.eu) you saw this job posting.