The Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) conducts fundamental research focusing on climate-related problems. The institute closely cooperates with the University of Hamburg, the German Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ) and the GKSS Research Centre within the Cluster of Excellence "Integrated Climate System Analysis and Prediction" (CliSAP). The goal is to analyze ongoing and past changes of the state of the climate system in response to natural and human-driven perturbations, to determine predictable elements of the climate system over a broad range of space and time scales, and to determine uncertainties intrinsic to predictions of important climate-system and environmental indices.
For the project "Computation of Error Bounds on Estimates of the Ocean State" we are seek-ing a
Scientist / Postdoc (SAS2009-26)
The project aims at calculating uncertainties for the ocean state and to apply the information about the error in the initial state to estimate the consequential error in the prediction.
The successful applicant will be responsible for developing an algorithm that provides an er-ror bound on the ocean state. The ocean state is estimated by variational data assimilation (4D-Var). The goal of the project is to express the error in the ocean state in terms of uncer-tainties in the input data of the assimilation process by means of an adjoint model. The de-velopment will be done in the framework of the ICON-ocean model. A Ph.D. in mathematics, oceanography, physics or related areas is required for this position. The applicant must have a thorough proven experience with numerical modeling, data as-similation and/or with large-scale optimization problems. Good programming skills (Fortran) are essential, experience with automatic differentiation technology is a plus. We expect the ability to conduct independent research. For more information please contact Peter Korn (pe-ter.korn(at)zmaw.de) or Detlef Stammer (Detlef.Stammer(at)zmaw.de).
The position is offered for 2 years. Payment will be in accordance with German public service positions (TVöD E13), including extensive social security plans. The conditions of employ-ment, including upgrades and duration, follow the rules of the Max Planck Society for the Ad-vancement of Sciences and those of the German civil service. The Max Planck Institute for Meteorology seeks to increase the number of female scientists and encourages them to ap-ply. Handicapped persons with comparable qualifications receive preferential status.
The selection process will start on 5. Oktober 2009 and will continue until the position is filled. Please submit a letter of interest, curriculum vitae, and the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of two references to :
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
Administration (SAS2009-26)
Bundesstrasse 53
D-20146 Hamburg, Germany
or
application-mpim(at)zmaw.de (please pdf-attachments max. 2 MB only)
