Is it time for a change..?

My employer DMI, and specifically my team at the National Centre for Climate Research are recruiting.

Not an earth-shattering revelation perhaps but these are premium research jobs, and this is probably a once in a generation opportunity in Denmark.

Let me explain. They are full time and permanent positions, working right at the cutting edge of both basic climate research, and importantly, climate services. You can see the full adverts at the links below:

• Climate scientist with focus on modelling ice sheets in the global climate system
• Sea level researcher for the National Center for Climate Research
• Researcher to study climate change and droughts
• Climate researcher for attribution studies and statistics

I call these positions once in a generation positions because these kind of positions just don’t come up very often. Part of the reason these are now available is related to the generation change* that is coming to DMI. Right now we are fortunate also to have a number of large EU funded projects as well as danish funding for our Climate Atlas and new hydrology department which is giving us the opportunity to plan for the long term.

Sea level rise is an existential threat for Denmark, at least in the long term and we are putting a great deal of effort not just into the science of melting ice, tipping points and so forth to try and assess the potential risks, but also into planning climate adaptation and mitigation in the short and medium term.

The new positions related to climate and ice sheets and sea level rise will have some flexibility with them in terms of how the jobs evolve and research directions. There will certainly be opportunities for whoever is hired to steer in their own direction and initiate their own research programmes within the broad frame of the topics. I can certainly also only praise the management for the generally supportive and research positive encouragement.

I’d like to help cast the net wide and deep to get as strong a pool of candidates as possible, so please do feel free to get in touch with me either here or via the usual email, and other social media feeds if I can help at all. And if you have good students, postdocs or others, please do share.

We will be holding some “open house” events where you can come in person to visit DMI or sign on in a virtual event to hear more about the positions, about DMI and what it’s like to work in Denmark. Again get in touch to hear more about those.

*”Generations skift” in Danish – I have not looked at the statistics but I suspect many public institutes, including weather and climate services are greying. There was an expansion during the 80s and 90s as numerical techniques became more widespread and integrated into weather prediction and by extension climate – many of the staff employed then are getting close to retirement. In my view DMI is wise to start trying to replace these staff now so there will be continuity and knowledge exchange before it becomes a problem.