Organisation/Company: CNRS
Department: Laboratoire d'océanographie physique et spatiale
Research Field: Environmental science
Researcher Profile: Recognised Researcher (R2)
Country: France
Application Deadline: 9 Dec 2024 - 23:59 (UTC)
Type of Contract: Temporary
Job Status: Full-time
Hours Per Week: 35
Offer Starting Date: 1 Feb 2025
Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Not funded by a EU programme
Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No
Offer Description We are looking for a post-doctoral candidate for investigating the ocean heat content (OHC) tendency of the North Atlantic Ocean. The selected candidate will work at LOPS at the 'Ocean and Climate' Team under the supervision of Damien Desbruyères and William Llovel.
The large-scale Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is monitored concomitantly at northern subtropical and subpolar latitudes since 2014 by the international RAPID and OSNAP mooring arrays, respectively. As of today, such arrays represent the most efficient and adequate tools to continuously estimate the strength of the AMOC, which is known to dominate the time-mean and time-varying meridional transport of heat across both arrays. The meridional convergence of those heat transports, corrected from air-sea heat fluxes, provide an estimate of the ocean heat content (OHC) tendency in between the arrays.
The selected candidate will work on estimating ocean heat transports based on hydrographic mooring arrays and objective analyses of hydrography profiles. A main difficulty when estimating ocean circulation from in situ data is the "level of no (or known) motion" problem, which consists in finding a best estimate of absolute velocity at an arbitrary depth level to reference the vertical velocity shear derived from in situ profiles of density. We propose to overcome this assumption by applying an inverse model. This approach will consist in imposing near-conservation rules for both mass and heat in order to construct a large number of dynamical constraints and solve for a least-square best-fit to all the input information. This will improve the description of the flow and provide a solution consistent with basin-integrated sea-level and heat content tendency within the North Atlantic. Estimates of uncertainties should be a key outcome of this methodology. This task will be divided into three main steps: (1) requesting and preparing the in situ input data from both the mooring products (temperature and cross-section velocity) and the Argo-based and satellite-based products (OHC and sea-level anomalies), (2) defining and building the inverse model, and (3) applying it to the input data to retrieve dynamically-consistent estimates of meridional heat transport and their uncertainties.
The selected researchers will join the "Ocean and Climate" team at LOPS in Brest (www.umr-lops.fr). LOPS is a joint laboratory between CNRS, Ifremer, the University of Brest, and the Institute of Research for Development. The Ocean and Climate team is a leader in high-resolution modelling as well as international ocean observation programs. The post-doctoral researcher will provide a stimulating international environment, a vibrant working environment ideal for early-career scientists, and an attractive place to live (Brest) with many cultural and outdoor activities, especially sea-oriented.
Benefits include: 45 days annual leave and quality catering on site.
Minimum Requirements Applicants must hold a PhD degree in physical oceanography or related field.
• Fluent oral and written communication skills in English.
• A strong background in oceanography, mathematics, and programming are an advantage.
• Ability to work independently as well as in a team.
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