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Human Resources JOB DESCRIPTION Vacancy reference: SRF14512-R Post Title: Research scientist for UKESM core development team. Grade: Grade 6 School/Department: Meteorology Reports to: Tristan Quaife/Richard Allan Responsible for: n/a Purpose We seek a motivated scientist to be part of the UKESM core development team to develop software tools and techniques for exploiting satellite data in the evaluation of the UK’s new Earth System Model, UKESM1. Main duties and responsibilities This is an exciting opportunity to join the UKESM core development team. The first UKESM model (UKESM1) will form the UK’s primary contribution to the forthcoming 6th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6) and hence deliver underpinning science to the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (AR6). As part of the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) and the UKESM core development team, you will be based at the University of Reading and will contribute to NERC’s UKESM Long Term Strategic Multi-centre (LTSM) project, involving all 8 NERC centres and the Met Office Hadley Centre. You will be directly responsible for developing software to enable the evaluation of UKESM1 simulations against a wide suite of Earth Observation data. In collaboration with other members of the UKESM core group and the wider UK community you will implement these new metrics into a number of community ESM evaluation packages such as AutoAssess and ESMValTool. This work will feed into a number of major international efforts developing standardized approaches to ESM evaluation. An emphasis in this position will be on the exploitation of satellite data for use in Earth system model evaluation. The initial scientific focus of the post will be on biophysical and biogeochemical interactions between the land and atmosphere, but work may ultimately be directed to other parts of the Earth system observable by satellite. There will be opportunities to contribute to publications in collaboration with other members of the UKESM core team and NCEO colleagues. You will be the main technical contact point for ensuring NERC/NCEO developed EO-based diagnostics and performance metrics intended for UKESM evaluation are implemented into existing model evaluation suites. In performing these tasks you will be expected to work with other members of the UKESM LTSM core and non-core teams, as well as staff from NCEO and the wider NERC community as appropriate. Part of your role will involve supporting the use of UKESM evaluation suites within the broader NERC/NCEO research community. You will also be required to interface with projects such as Obs4MIPS and ESGF (the Earth System Grid Federation). Supervision received You will report to Associate Professor Tristan Quaife and Professor Richard Allan at the University of Reading and the UKESM project lead and core group head, Professor Colin Jones, at the Met Office Hadley Centre. You will receive guidance on the use of satellite data in model evaluation, in the design of evaluation metrics and in the structure and use of UKESM models. ©University of Reading 2017 Page 1
Supervision given None. Contact As well as liaising with NCEO colleagues at the University of Reading, you will have regular contact with the wider NCEO community (based at several UK Universities) and with the UK Met Office. As a member of the UKESM core group you will collaborate directly with the other 18 members of the group, particularly with the 3 core group members at the University of Reading. You will be expected to attend monthly UKESM core group meetings and make fairly regular (approximately once per month) visits to the Met Office in Exeter to facilitate collaboration with the bulk of the UKESM core group. You will also have the opportunity to collaborate with the NCAS Computational and Modelling Services team, based at the University of Reading and scientists at the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. Terms and conditions This is a fixed term post until 31st March 2021. Normal working hours are 37.5 per week. Some travel within the UK will be required, in particular to attend UKESM core group meetings (at least monthly) and interact with other members of the UKESM core group and NCEO. You will also be expected to attend NCEO staff meetings. Some travel within Europe will also be required in order to work with similar ESM evaluation efforts. This document outlines the duties required for the time being of the post to indicate the level of responsibility. It is not a comprehensive or exhaustive list and the line manager may vary duties from time to time which do not change the general character of the job or the level of responsibility entailed. Date assessed: ©University of Reading 2017 Page 2
PERSON SPECIFICATION
Job Title School/Department
Research scientist for the UKESM core Meteorology
development team
Criteria Essential Desirable
Skills Required Excellent computer Experience of UNIX like
programming skills systems and massively
Good verbal communication parallel computing
skills environments.
Good scientific writing skills
Attainment A good first degree in a PhD involving use of
numerate/computational computer science
science. techniques applied in the
PhD or equivalent experience physical sciences.
in the physical sciences,
mathematics or computer
science
Knowledge Advanced computer Good working knowledge of
programming knowledge Python
Understanding of Earth
System Models and physical
processes relating to
biosphere and water cycle
Relevant Experience Processing large data sets. Working with satellite data
Working with climate data or
model outputs
Familiarity with netCDF or
similar data standards
Disposition Clear ability to work within a Confidence to propose and
team working towards a set of lead technical developments
common goals when required.
Comfortable communicating Ability to support new users
results to other scientists in of developed evaluation
meetings/conferences. tools.
Strongly motivated. Openness to become
engaged in international
projects developing
standardized approaches to
ESM evaluation.
Other Ability to work to and meet
deadlines
Completed by: Tristan Quaife Date: 12/8/16
©University of Reading 2017 Page 3UKESM core development team: NCEO Research Scientist responsible for evaluation software. The Met Office and NERC jointly resource and coordinate UK activities to develop, enhance and utilize a world leading Earth System Model (ESM). They are jointly making a long-term investment in the science of ESM components and in the complex science of bringing the range of separate components together into a state-of-the-art ESM. They also invest in the technical infrastructure and support required to develop, evaluate and maintain the ESM as a community effort, and to make it available for scientific exploitation by the UK science community. This collaboration has led to the creation of a UKESM core group with responsibility for assembling, testing, evaluating, applying and supporting community use of UKESM model versions. The core group presently consists of 18 scientists, with members located at the Met Office (Exeter), NCAS (Reading), NOC (Southampton), CEH (Wallingford), BAS (Cambridge) and PML (Plymouth). This post is for a UKESM core group position located at Reading as part of the National Centre for Earth Observation, NCEO (http://www.nceo.ac.uk) contribution to the UKESM core group. The present focus of the UKESM core team is the development and exploitation of a new generation ESM, known as UKESM1, on timescales to fit with the 6th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) and the next 6th IPCC Assessment Report. UKESM1 has significantly increased scientific capabilities compared with earlier generation (CMIP5) models and has been designed to address a broad range of questions in Earth System Science. UKESM1 will be made widely available as a resource to the UK research community and is suitable for the simulation of climate and Earth system change over past and future decades to centuries, for studying climates of earlier periods and for studying the Earth system response to external forcing scenarios on these timescales. UKESM1 is based on the Met Office physical climate model HadGEM3 and developed at two resolutions, one (UKESM1-hr) being the highest resolution affordable at present and a second, lower resolution (UKESM1-lr) that is suitable for long multi- century simulations or for generating large ensembles. Both model versions will produce vast amounts of data, which will lead to a range of problems, particularly for a distributed team. Data movement (from where it's produced to where it will be analysed) will be needed, as well as common analysis tools. The post holder will be responsible for the development and support of tools for model analysis, in particular for the evaluation of model simulations against appropriate observations, with a specific focus of data from satellites. Most existing analysis tools in the academic community are based on IDL, although python is becoming increasingly prevalent. The UKESM project is establishing a common earth system model diagnostic suite based on python, using a combination of existing and new software, with users requiring training in the use of these tools. Prospective users will include the core UKESM development team, as well as UKESM model users in the wider community. The exact structure of the evaluation library is still under development, but it will include code to support the calculation of ESM performance metrics agreed by the international community. The most important characteristic of the appointee will be that she/he is a confident experienced programmer who either has, or can quickly gain, the appropriate skills. Such skills include python and C or Fortran, as well as experience in manipulating and/or plotting complex environmental data (in any language). Specific experience of satellite derived observations would also be an advantage. ©University of Reading 2017 Page 4
The post holder will be an NCEO staff member, employed by the University of Reading in the Department of Meteorology, (http://www.met.reading.ac.uk). The National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) is a distributed centre of approximately 100 scientists from UK institutions including the University of Reading. It provides NERC (The Natural Environment Research Council) with National Capability in Earth observation (EO) science and incorporates world-class capabilities related to the use of such observations in computer models; NCEO principally works with EO data from satellites in space. The NERC strategy, “The Business of the Environment”, identifies a unique ability of satellite EO to study environmental change on scales from global to local. In response to this, NCEO provides innovative approaches to Earth System science, meeting the related needs of society through long-term core science and translation of EO knowledge and environmental data for support of government and business. This role will form part of NCEO’s commitment to delivering National Capability in Earth Observation science to NERC and forms a part of the NCEO contribution to the UKESM LTSM project. The Department of Meteorology is a world renowned research department with more than 100 research and academic staff and 40 research students. For further details please contact: Associate Prof. Tristan Quaife (t.l.quaife@reading.ac.uk), Prof. Richard Allan (r.p.allan@reading.ac.uk) or Prof. Colin Jones (colin.jones@metoffice.gov.uk) ©University of Reading 2017 Page 5
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