CEDAR email: PhD student position in Germany

[Anne Smith]

We are seeking a PhD student to join our team working on the

"Derivation of atomic oxygen and temperature in the middle atmosphere
and how they are affected by global change"

The Earth middle atmosphere is the least explored and understood
region of the Earth climate system. It is a transition region between
the lower atmosphere, where climate change will affect human life
directly, and the space environment, where the sun masks signs of
anthropogenic changes. Key parameters in this context are the atomic
oxygen abundance and temperature in the mesosphere / lower
thermosphere. During this thesis, a photochemical model for
electronically excited atomic oxygen will be developed to retrieve
atomic oxygen abundance from green line emission rates as measured by
a satellite. Using this data, a non-local thermodynamic equilibrium
model for CO2 and OH to retrieve temperature data will be improved and
applied to infra red remote sensing data. Finally, these datasets will
be analysed with respect to solar influences and climate change. This
work will give a deep insight into middle atmosphere chemistry,
satellite and ground-based remote sensing techniques, modelling of
radiative transfer in the atmosphere, and how climate change affects
the atmosphere.

The thesis will be conducted in the framework of the Helmholtz
Graduate School in Energy- and Climate Research
(http://www.fz-juelich.de/portal/EN/Expertise/ImpartingKnowledge/hitec/_node.html).
Host institution is Forschungszentrum Juelich, Institute of Energy and
Climate Research - Stratosphere (IEK-7), Germany. The project will be
conducted in collaboration with University of Wuppertal (Prof. Martin
Riese, Prof. R. Koppmann), National Centre for Space Science, Beijing,
China (Prof. Jiyao Xu), and National Centre for Atmospheric Research,
Boulder, USA (Dr. Anne Smith).

The candidate should have a M.Sc. in Physics, Chemistry or Applied
Mathematics and have very good programming skills, preferably in python.

For more information please contact Martin Kaufmann, Forschungszentrum
Juelich, IEK-7, m.kaufmann at fz-juelich.de.

Please package your application into one pdf file and submit your
application electronically until 8 February 2012 to
b.koester at fz-juelich.de (CC: m.kaufmann at fz-juelich.de).