Jobs:Job-00866

Accepting PhD application for coupled water and carbon cycle modeling

Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, , Germany
Apply before: 31 January 2019

Posting: Position: PhD opportunity Apply before: 31 January 2019 Apply online: https://recruitingapp-5128.de.umantis.com/Vacancies/1527/Description/2

A fundamental challenge for model-observation comparisons lies in the scale mismatch between plot-scale observations and larger-scale predictions made in simulations. Within this PhD-college, procedures shall be developed and evaluated which can scale outputs from the ecosystem-level up to the regional and country scales by considering different temporal scales in sampling and modeling describing the biogeophysical and hydrological processes. For this aim we try to achieve simulation models that are able to represent biogeochemical/hydrological cycles and their coupled processes in a realistic way and scale the relevant processes to larger regions via remote sensing.

PhD position:
The PhD project aims to identify the adequate level of complexity for bio-geo-chemical modeling of coupled water and carbon cycles, and check the adequacy of existing model concept for representing coupled carbon and water fluxes across different biomes (arable land and grassland sites). Building on this, the PhD shall investigate a range of integrated terrestrial carbon cycling and dynamic vegetation models for their suitability (in terms of complexity and adequacy) to be integrated within the in-house developed Multiscale Hydrologic Modeling framework (mHM). The model assessment shall be related to their applicability to run at different sites (transferability) and scales (field scale and regional). The so-developed integrated water and (terrestrial) carbon model will contribute to improve our understanding on the interaction between the water and carbon cycle under changing environmental conditions with particular emphasis on extreme events like droughts and heat waves.

Main tasks of this position will be screening and evaluation of possible (terrestrial) carbon and vegetation models against existing observational datasets (e.g., TERENO/ICOS sites and data sets from long term field experiments), their integration (numerical coding/programming) into the existing hydrologic model (mHM) including parameterizations and (multiscale) regionalization approaches for running the integrated model at different scales and sites, and perform thought-driven experiments with the integrated model.

Your profile:

Applicants with a degree in bio-geosciences with emphasis on agronomy, soil-water plant system, carbon and water cycles or in related topics are encouraged to apply. The candidate should demonstrate programming ability (e.g., Fortran, Python, R) and statistical analytics of model and observational datasets. Communication skills in English and willingness to work in a team, present and publish results at scientific conferences and peer-reviewed scientific journals are required. Experience in soil sampling and analysis may be helpful. She/ He will benefit from related graduate activities and programs at the UFZ.

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Of interest for:

Terrestrial Working Group

Hydrology Focus Research Group