Ph.D. positions at the Department of Atmospheric Physics at Charles University that are co-funded by specific research projects are automatically connected with a job position/employment and a salary additional to the monthly Ph.D. stipendium. For more information on Ph.D. studies at the Department of Atmospheric Physics please see https://kfa.mff.cuni.cz/phd.
The positions are available from July 1, 2020 in case of the projects oriented on the climate modelling and air quality modelling. The position aiming at high resolution street-scale modelling with LES Models is available from January 2021 (please see details below). All the applicants will enter the Ph.D. study program in October 2020. In case of interest, please contact us at kfa@mff.cuni.cz.
Particular study plans and details of the research positions will be specified personally with successful candidates. The research projects funding depends on approval of the funding agencies.
Applications:
Please send your application by March 31, 2020 to kfa@mff.cuni.cz (with indication which project position you are interested in)
Please include:
- Academic CV and a pdf of your diplomas including (link to the) the diploma thesis
- List of course topics related to meteorology, air quality, climate modelling or atmospheric physics
- Specification of programming and language skills
- List of publications (if any)
- List of research projects (if any)
- Statement of research interests and career goals, indicating why you are interested in the position
- List of at least two references: names, phone numbers, and email
General Requirements:
- Master-of-Science-equivalent degree in meteorology and/or environmental physics with fulfilled courses related to the research project
- The candidate should have good to very good experience in Unix / Linux working environments and programming skills in Python, SQL or Fortran
- Strong communication in English language (spoken and written)
- Willingness to interact with an interdisciplinary science community
- A creative mind-set for scientific research
High resolution street-scale modelling with LES Models
The Department of Atmospheric Physics at Charles University, Prague invites applications for one 3 years long funded PhD position to join a Norwegian grants funded research project aiming at high resolution street-scale modelling with LES Models.
The research position will be available from January 2021. We will offer a job position starting in October 2020 to the successful candidate.
The position will be primarily connected to the development and use of LES models (specifically PALM-4U) for the simulations of street-scale conditions within the real urban environment.
The successful candidate will join the team responsible for model development, evaluation and scenario simulations of urban environment in high resolution with PALM-4U, an open source LES model. The contribution of the PhD student will be an improvement of the current urban surface module of the PALM-4U model, testing of the model performance in real situations and production and evaluation of urban planning scenarios. The candidate will also contribute to the comparison of LES and Gaussian modelling approaches.
All positions will be fulfilled within the project of the Czech Technological Agency (in the framework of the Norwegian grants call) – TURBAN: Turbulent-resolving urban modeling of air quality and thermal comfort. The successful candidate will join a young and ambitious research team at DAP FMP in Prague and within the project will collaborate with Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Hydrometeorological Institute and Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre in Norway. Ph.D. of the candidates will be fully funded, partly from the mentioned project and partly as a regular monthly stipendium with about 1000 EUR/month net income (+ the stipendium is gradually increased during the study – for details, please see https://kfa.mff.cuni.cz/phd).
Climate modelling, regional climate models and analysis of the climate models output
The Department of Atmospheric Physics at Charles University, Prague invites applications for three 4 years long funded PhD positions to join a Czech national research project aiming at climate modeling, regional climate models and analysis of the climate models output.
The positions are available from July 1, 2020. The applicants will enter the Ph.D. study program in October 2020.
All three positions will be connected to development, analysis and validation of regional climate models (RCMs). The contribution of the PhD student may include:
- Implementation of specific parameterization into RCM experiments
- Analysis of RCM experiments focused on urbanization
- Analysis of CMIP global climate models outputs and related experiments oriented on long-term forecast
- Analysis of the downscaled model results within the EuroCORDEX Activity including FPS Convection experiments
- Running own RCM experiments oriented on the dynamical downscaling, application and comparison of various methods for bias correction
All positions will be fulfilled within the project of the Czech Technological Agency – Perun: Prediction, assessment and sensitivity analysis of selected systems, influence of the draught and climate change in the Czech Republic. Some previous experience with regional climate modelling will be advantage. The successful candidates will join a young and ambitious research team at DAP. FMP in Prague and within the project will collaborate with other Czech research institutes (Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences etc.). Ph.D. of the candidates will be fully funded, partly from the mentioned project and partly as a regular monthly stipendium with about net 1000 EUR/month income (+ the stipendium is gradually increased during the study – for details, please see https://kfa.mff.cuni.cz/phd).
Modeling emissions and tropospheric chemistry
The Department of Atmospheric Physics at Charles University, Prague invites applications for two 4 years long funded PhD positions to join a Czech national research project aiming at modeling emissions and tropospheric chemistry.
The positions are available from July 1, 2020. The applicants will enter the Ph.D. study program in October 2020. In case of interest, please contact us at kfa@mff.cuni.cz.
Position I
Anthropogenic and biogenic emission modeling: implementation of meteorology dependent emissions in emission models and analysis of their impact on concentrations in chemistry transport models.
The successful candidate will join the development team responsible for the FUME emission model (www.fume-ep.org). FUME is an open source software intended primarily for the preparation of emissions for chemical transport models. As such, FUME is responsible for preprocessing the input files and the spatial distribution, chemical speciation, and time disaggregation of the primary emission inputs. The contribution of the PhD student to FUME will be the development and implementation of meteorology dependent emission modules and their testing. These will include improvements in the biogenic emission module (currently MEGAN), improvements in the module for calculating ammonia emission from live-stock and different agricultural activities, implementation of temperature dependent domestic heating module and module for wind -induced dust emissions. The implementation of module for defining sector/species based emission scenarios and improvements in overall model performance (speed) will be also part of his tasks. Finally, the candidate will focus on the assessment of the response of these emissions within a state-of-the-art chemistry transport model.
Outcome of a successful research will be advanced emission model extended with different modules for meteorology-dependent emission calculation and a detailed knowledge on how these emissions influence the final pollutant concentrations in chemistry transport model, especially during heavy air pollution events.
Position II
Modeling the contribution of primary emissions from different sources and regions to secondary pollutant concentrations: focus on secondary aerosol formation.
The numerical model representation of the formation of secondary aerosol are burdened with still high uncertainty, especially in case of the secondary organic aerosol with complicated nucleation pathways from low-volatile precursors. The successful candidate will focus on the model representation of formation of aerosol from gas-phase precursors and analyze the sensitivity of their concentrations on emission from different sectors and regions, on meteorological conditions as well as on different model parameterization of their formation from primary precursors. Apart from aerosol, the candidate will focus also on modeling benzo-α-pyrene (BaP) and identifying the contribution of different regional-to-local sources. Extensive comparison of model data to observations will be a crucial part of the candidate’s duties and a tight cooperation with the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute and with the Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals of the Czech Academy of Sciences is expected.
Outcome of a successful research will be and comprehensive assessment of the sources of aerosol and BaP pollution for the region of Central Europe.
Both tasks will be fulfilled within the project of the Czech Technological Agency No: SS02030031 – Integrated system of research, evaluation and control of air quality. The successful candidates will join a young and ambitious research team at DAP FMP in Prague and within the project will collaborate with other Czech research institutes (Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences etc.). The Ph.D. study of the candidates will be fully funded, partly from the mentioned project and partly as a regular monthly stipendium with about net 1000 EUR/month income (+ the stipendium is gradually increased during the study – for details, please see https://kfa.mff.cuni.cz/phd).
Requirements:
1) Master-of-Science-equivalent degree in meteorology and/or environmental physics with fulfilled courses of atmospheric chemistry and physics.
2) The candidate should have good to very good experience in Unix / Linux working environments and programming skills in Python, SQL or Fortran.
3) Strong communication in English language (spoken and written)
4) Willingness to interact with an interdisciplinary science community
5) A creative mind-set for scientific research
Advantages:
1) Previous experience in modeling anthropogenic/biogenic emissions and air pollution transport using chemistry transport model is considered as a great advantage
2) Experience in contribution to scientific software development (preferably in Python)
