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:

DMI scientists collaborating with local hunters in the field in Greenland

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.

Oh Vienna…

In the before times I would usually spend this week walking around a world class city humming an old 80’s hit (- don’t ask me why it was so durable in my head, probably something to do with being an impressionable age at a time when access to pop music meant half an hour on a Thursday evening).

Anyway, it is the time for EGU… Sadly I will not be wandering the streets of the ever beautiful (and most livable) capital of Austria this year. I have to get some actual work done, but I’m following the #EGU23 on mastodon and hoping to catch a few highlights on the sides. I do have a poster, which will be capably presented by PolarRES PI Priscilla Mooney and my DMI Colleague Abraham Torres on Thursday.

The topic is our PolarRES project – an ambitious Horizon 2020 effort to produce a large ensemble of regional climate simulations over both poles. These are state-of-the-art regional climate models run at unprecedented high spatial resolution and all data will be made open access and free via the CORDEX project.

I will also put it here later – feel free to comment here or ask questions on mastodon or get in touch by email if it sounds exciting.

Mottram, R., Mooney, P., and Torres, J. A. and the PolarRES Consortium: A first look at the new PolarRES ensemble of polar regional climate model storylines to 2100, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-14470, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-14470, 2023.

Other posters and talks I’ve contributed to from PolarRES are

Kristiina Verro’s talk on HCLIM_Arome results from the Antarctic peninsula:

Verro, K., van de Berg, W. J., Orr, A., Landgren, O., and van Ulft, B.: New non-hydrostatic polar regional climate model HCLIM-AROME: analysis of the föhn event on 27 January 2011 over the Larsen C Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-13864, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-13864, 2023.

Abraham Torres joined our group last year and is primarily working on PolarRES also. He will show some of our preliminary HCLIM results for both the Arctic and the Antarctic

Torres-Alavez, A., Landgren, O., Boberg, F., Christensen, O. B., Mottram, R., Olesen, M., Van Ulft, B., Verro, K., and Batrak, Y.: Assessing Performance of a new High Resolution polar regional climate model with remote sensing and in-situ observations: HCLIM in the Arctic and Antarctica, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-14090, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-14090, 2023

Quentin Glaude is a collaborator from Liege in the Horizon 2020 PROTECT project on sea level rise contributions from the cryosphere . Baptiste Vandecrux, a former PhD student with me here and now working at GEUS is also presenting some work based on the same models as Quentin, with a comparison to the PROMICE observation statons on the Greealnd ice sheet. It’s very cool application of machine learning and the results are very interesting.

Glaude, Q., Noel, B., Olesen, M., Boberg, F., van den Broeke, M., Mottram, R., and Fettweis, X.: The Divergent Futures of Greenland Surface Mass Balance Estimates from Different Regional Climate Models, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-7920, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-7920, 2023

Vandecrux, B., Fausto, R. S., Box, J. E., Covi, F., Hock, R., Rennermalm, A., Heilig, A., Abermann, J., Van As, D., Løkkegaard, A., Fettweis, X., Smeets, P. C. J. P., Kuipers Munneke, P., Van Den Broeke, M., Brils, M., Langen, P. L., Mottram, R., and Ahlstrøm, A. P.: Historical snow and ice temperature compilation documents the recent warming of the Greenland ice sheet, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-9080, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-9080, 2023.

Nicolaj Hansen (who finished his PhD with me and Sebastian Simonsen at DTU Space last year) has just submitted a beauty of a paper which he will talk about – also partof PROTECT.

 Hansen, N., Sørensen, L. S., Spada, G., Melini, D., Forsberg, R., Mottram, R., and Simonsen, S. B.: ICESat-2 Ice Sheet Mass balance: Going below the surface, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-12349, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-12349, 2023

Mathias Larsen is a current Phd student with me and is presenting a poster on the CARRA dataset and an application in surface mass balance modelling. This work falls under the danish National center for klima forskning

Larsen, M., H. Mottram, R., and L. Langen, P.: CARRA-driven simulation of Greenland Ice Sheet surface mass balance at 2.5 km resolution, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-5852, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-5852, 2023

Last year I co-organised a bootcamp for early career researchers on Arctic processes in the CMIP6 models. It was super fun and would not have been possible without the support offered by Anne Fouilloux, Tina Odaka and colleagues from the Pangeo project. Their poster is super interesting and if you’re interested in optimising the use of big climate data, go and check it out!

Fouilloux, A., Marasco, P. L., Odaka, T., Mottram, R., Zieger, P., Schulz, M., Coca-Castro, A., Iaquinta, J., and Eynard Bontemps, G.: Pangeo framework for training: experience with FOSS4G, the CLIVAR bootcamp and the eScience course, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-8756, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-8756, 2023.

Excitingly, at least 3 of the projects at the bootcamp will also be presented at EGU this year. So, lots to be getting on with, for now, here’s a link to Ultravox’s finest…