[ES_JOBS_NET] Postdoctoral Scholar Opportunities to Study the Effect of Dust on Earth's Weather and Climate at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography

[Amato Evan]

*Three Postdoctoral Scholar Opportunities at the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography to Study the Effect of Dust on Earth’s Weather and Climate.*
The lab of Professor Amato Evan at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
is seeking to hire up to three postdoctoral scholars or fixed-term staff
scientists to conduct research on the impacts of dust on Earth’s weather
and climate (detailed descriptions are below):
Position 1: Improving Understanding of the Direct Radiative Effect of Dust
with EMIT
Position 2: Studying the Emission, Transport, and Deposition of Large Dust
Particles
Position 3: Evaluating the Meteorology of Dust Emission in Climate Models

*Our commitment:*
The successful candidates will be part of Prof. Amato Evan’s Lab, which is
deliberate about providing a supportive environment for students, postdocs,
and researchers of all backgrounds. The lab also provides opportunities to
gain experience in fieldwork, instrumentation, laboratory analysis,
community outreach, and high-school science curriculum development in
support of other funded and related projects lead by Prof. Evan’s lab
(e.g., https://ucdust.ucsd.edu/). Successful candidates will have access to
career counseling and advising through programs offered by the UCSD Office
of Postdoctoral Scholar Affairs. We particularly encourage applications
from scientists from historically underrepresented groups in the
geosciences.


*General Qualifications:*• A Ph.D. in atmospheric science, meteorology,
physics, or a related field, by appointment start date.
• Strong mentoring, quantitative, programming, and communication skills.


*Positions details:*• Location: SIO/UCSD.
• Competitive, experience-based salary.
• U.S. citizenship or residency is not required.
• Two-year appointment, renewable based on performance and funding.
• Flexible start date, preferably Summer or Fall 2024.
• Inclusive and supportive research environment.

*Application Process:*
Please submit a single PDF containing your CV, cover letter, references
(three), and a summary of recent work and interests (max one page) to Prof.
Amato Evan (aevan at ucsd.edu). Indicate the position—or positions—you would
like to be considered for. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis
until all vacancies are filled. Only shortlisted candidates will be
contacted.

The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action
Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for
employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual
orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age or protected
veteran status. For the complete University of California nondiscrimination
and affirmative action policy please follow this link:
http://policy.ucop.edu/doc/4000376/NondiscrimAffirmAct.

*Position 1: Improving Understanding of the Direct Radiative Effect of Dust
with EMIT*
The goal of this work is to improve understanding of the dust direct
radiative effect (DRE), and how the DRE is changing as a response to an
increasingly arid environment. At present, understanding of the dust DRE is
so limited that not even the sign of the DRE at the top of the atmosphere
is known. However, new measurements from the Earth Surface Mineral Dust
Source Investigation (EMIT) instrument, which is currently flying onboard
the International Space Station, have the potential to greatly improve
understanding of the dust DRE and dust radiative feedbacks. This research
will focus on dust emitted from ephemeral lakes. Despite ephemeral lakes
being some of the most active and rapidly changing dust sources on Earth,
dust from these sources is understudied. We will conduct this research
across a variety of scales using observations, mesoscale modeling, and
global climate modeling. The successful candidate will collaborate with
project Co-Investigators Prof. Will Porter at UC Riverside and Dr. Paul
Ginoux at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.


*As a key member of our team, you will:*• Use EMIT data and field
measurements to quantify the dust DRE over a field site in southeastern
California.
• Use the Weather Forecasting and Research with Chemistry model to explore
the consequences of a drying lake in Southern California on the regional
weather and climate.
• Use the NOAA GFDL-AM4 to estimate current and possible future
contributions of ephemeral lake dust to global dust loading and the dust
DRE at the global scale.


*Specific Qualifications:*• Expertise in aerosols, mesoscale processes,
and/or climate dynamics.
• Experience or a strong interest in using weather and climate models like
WRF or GFDL-AM4.
• Skill in analyzing weather/climate model output.

*Position 2: Studying the Emission, Transport, and Deposition of Large Dust
Particles*
The goal of this research is to improve understanding of the emission,
transport, and deposition of desert dust, with a focus on large particles
(i.e., with diameters greater than 20 microns). These particles are
ubiquitous in Earth’s atmosphere, yet the governing physical processes are
poorly understood. We will address this problem by generating novel
measurements during dust storms in a desert region of southeastern
California, and by developing idealized models of dust emission, transport
and deposition that can be used to interpret these measurements. The
successful candidate will collaborate with project Co-Investigators Profs.
Jasper Kok and Marcelo Chamecki at UCLA.


*As a key member of our team, you will:*• Participate in fieldwork planning
and measurement method development.
• Work with, or lead, a team to generate new measurements of dust and
meteorology in dust storms.
• Conduct analysis of measurements and assist in permanent archiving of all
new data.
• Work with the project Co-Is to Develop idealized models of particle
transport and deposition that can then be used to interpret the
measurements.
• Work with the project Co-Is to revise theory describing dust emission
based on the new measurements.


*Specific Qualifications:*• Expertise in aerosols and/or boundary layer
processes.
• Experience or a strong interest in conducting fieldwork.
• Experience or a strong interest in analyzing observational data.


*Position 3: Evaluating the Meteorology of Dust Emission in Climate Models*The
goal of this research is to improve understanding of the role that
meteorological processes that are typically unresolved in global climate
models play in shaping the global dust cycle. We aim to utilize the Model
for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS) along with a new and offline dust
emission model to estimate the contribution of haboobs, downslope
windstorms, valley flow, and other mesoscale processes, to the global
patterns of dust emission. These data can in-turn be utilized to force the
patterns of dust emission in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) to
examine the contribution of unresolved processes to dust transport and
deposition, and dust direct and indirect radiative effects. The successful
candidate will collaborate with project collaborator Falko Judt at NCAR.


*As a key member of our team, you will:*• Generate new—and examine output
from existing—simulations with MPAS.
• Evaluate the effects of model resolution and convective parameterization
on the global patterns of dust emission.
• Develop and test a parameterization to correct related biases in
subgrid-scale surface wind speeds in CESM.
• Use a modified version of CESM to investigate the potential contribution
of unresolved orography and convective downdrafts to the global dust cycle.


*Specific Qualifications:*• Expertise in aerosols, mesoscale processes,
and/or climate dynamics.
• Experience or a strong interest in using global weather/climate models
like CESM or MPAS.
• Skill in analyzing weather/climate model output.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.ucar.edu/pipermail/es_jobs_net/attachments/20240315/961852ba/attachment.htm>