probe - Job offers March 2023

Are you an experienced scientist who wants to shape the future of Earth Observations research? Are you remote sensing expert? Then maybe a senior scientist position at NILU is a great opportunity for you!

Check out the call below, the application deadline is 31 March 2023!

main topics:

Contribute to strengthen our research capabilities and the Atmosphere and Climate Research department project portfolio.

Engage in ongoing remote sensing projects as well as target new projects from competitive funding opportunities.

place: NILU, Kjeller, Norway

qualification required: Higher university degree in atmospheric remote sensing, meteorology, or equivalent. 4+ years working experience in atmospheric research. A deep understanding of remote sensing.

application deadline: 31 March 2023

contact person: Kjetil Tørseth, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or phone +47 90 14 65 63

link: https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/240956/senior-scientist-earth-observations-at-nilu

What is the position about. EU expected damages due to climate change and floods in the 2050s will reach 45 billion euros annually. Severe thunderstorms play a crucial role, especially in the Alps, producing heavy rain that can cause landslides and flash floods. Despite the significant steps forward regarding short-time forecasts, some information in the spatiotemporal evolution of cloud systems is still almost unexplored. EXPATS aims to advance the understanding and predictive potential of severe storms over the Alpine region by exploiting remote sensing observations via machine learning (ML) methodologies. Using ML methods, we can analyze cloud patterns in the past, contributing to the literature debate on climatic changes in hail frequency.

The PhD candidate will investigate spatiotemporal changes in the patterns of severe hail events in the satellite datasets since 2006 using recently developed AI embedding methods. This research will answer the following research questions:

Does the spatiotemporal evolution of cloud patterns classes change over the years?
Can we identify specific changes in the hail storm spatiotemporal evolution?
Did the environmental conditions in which systems develop change over time?

Detailed information. The position will be remunerated as 75% E13 TV-L salary. The position is offered for four years (including one year as Post-doc) starting approximatively in April 2023. It will be based at the University of Cologne, within the Institute for Geophysics and Meteorology, Pohligstrasse 3, 50969 Koeln. Research stays for a total of 1 year are planned during the PhD at the German meteorological service (DWD) and at the Italian institutions that are partners in the project (CNR-ISAC, Bologna).

Research framework. EXPATS is part of the IDEA-S4S project, which embodies a new bilateral collaboration in meteorology, climatology, and related disciplines that will create a center of excellence in research and translate the results into improving operational services and university training. Germany and Italy have set a goal to develop a collaborative network of permanent exchange of expertise in research and education based on the two new ECMWF sites opened in late 2021 in Bonn and Bologna. The key German institutions involved within the IDEA-S4S are CESOC, the DWD, the Federal ministry of education and research (BMDV), while the key Italian institutions involved in the network are University of Bologna, Institute of atmospheric sciences and climate (CNR-ISAC), the regional weather service of Emilia Romagna (ARPAE), the Agenzia nazionale per la meteorologia e climatologia – ItaliaMeteo, The Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC) and the Cineca data center.

Required expertise

Master's degree in one among meteorology, physics, mathematics, or computer science or similar,
Proficiency in English written and spoken language,
Good programming skills in Python or other high-level programming languages.

We appreciate previous expertise in machine learning or satellite remote sensing, and we welcome good communication skills, the ability to work in a team, and flexibility.

What we offer. The PhD is framed in within the Graduate School of Geosciences (GSGS) training school that will offer dedicated training on relevant soft skills, and the University of Cologne offers the possibility to participate in mentoring programs. Moreover, the IDEA-S4S will provide an international framework where you will get in contact with stakeholders that can be relevant for the next steps in your career and where to grow your scientific network. We will organize visiting periods and summer schools to increase your visibility as a scientist, and there is also the possibility of getting other advanced training or language courses. Finally, Cologne, as well as Bologna for the visiting periods, are vibrant international cities welcoming students from all over the world, rich of culture and exciting traditions to discover.

Applications. If you are interested, send your CV and a cover letter describing your motivation, background, training and research interests, certificates and also hobbies and passions. Add the contact information of two people which can be asked for reference and specify the PhD position title in the documentation. Provide all the material in a single PDF of less than 5 MB via email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Applications are reviewed until the position is filled.

Selection. The selection for the positions will be solely on merit without regard to gender, religion, national origin, political affiliation, marital or family status or other differences. Preference will be given to persons with disabilities among equally qualified applicants.

PhD position: High resolution model evaluation with self-supervised neural network approach targeted over the Alps.

The Institute of Geophysics and Meteorology of the University of Cologne invites applications for the

PhD Position: High resolution model evaluation with self-supervised neural network approach targeted over the Alps.

within the project "Exploiting spatiotemporal cloud patterns to advance severe storms process understanding and detection" (EXPATS) as part of the Italy-Germany science-4-services network in weather and climate (IDEA-S4S).

What is the position about. EU expected damages due to climate change and floods in the 2050s will reach 45 billion euros annually. Severe thunderstorms play a crucial role, especially in the Alps, producing heavy rain that can cause landslides and flash floods. Despite the significant steps forward regarding short-time forecasts, some information in the spatiotemporal evolution of cloud systems is still almost unexplored. EXPATS aims to advance the understanding and predictive potential of severe storms over the Alpine region by exploiting remote sensing observations via machine learning (ML) methodologies.

The PhD will develop a new framework for evaluating ICON simulations provided by Global-to-Regional ICON (GLORI) Alpine Twin with MSG/MTG data exploiting new methodologies based on machine learning (ML). A recently developed self-supervised machine learning (SSL) computational model (Chatterjee et al., 2022) will be used to evaluate the ICON-GLORI. This ML approach will represent the bridge between the observations and the model in the Alpine digital twin, allowing investigations of model outputs, satellite observations inside ML’s high dimensional feature space.

This research will answer the following research questions:

Can model performances be evaluated using the presented ML approach?
Are the cloud classes derived from the model similar to the ones derived from MSG observations and can similar transitions between classes be detected?
Can the differences among the different cloud classes be quantified in physical cloud properties?

Detailed information. The position will be remunerated as 75% E13 TV-L salary. The position is offered for four years (including one year as Post-doc) starting approximatively in April 2023. It will be based at the University of Cologne, within the Institute for Geophysics and Meteorology, Pohligstrasse 3, 50969 Koeln. Research stays for a total of 1 year are planned during the PhD at the german meteorological service (DWD) and at the Italian institutions that are partners in the project (CNR-ISAC, Bologna).

Research framework. EXPATS is part of the IDEA-S4S project, which embodies a new bilateral collaboration in meteorology, climatology, and related disciplines that will create a center of excellence in research and translate the results into improving operational services and university training. Germany and Italy have set a goal to develop a collaborative network of permanent exchange of expertise in research and education based on the two new ECMWF sites opened in late 2021 in Bonn and Bologna. The key German institutions involved within the IDEA-S4S are CESOC, the DWD, the Federal ministry of education and research (BMDV), while the key Italian institutions involved in the network are University of Bologna, Institute of atmospheric sciences and climate (CNR-ISAC), the regional weather service of Emilia Romagna (ARPAE), the Agenzia nazionale per la meteorologia e climatologia – ItaliaMeteo, The Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC) and the Cineca data center.

Required expertise

Master's degree in one among meteorology, physics, mathematics, or computer science or similar,
Proficiency in English written and spoken language,
Good programming skills in Python or other high-level programming languages.

We appreciate previous expertise in machine learning or satellite remote sensing, and we welcome good communication skills, the ability to work in a team, and flexibility.

What we offer. The PhD is framed in within the Graduate School of Geosciences (GSGS) training school that will provide dedicated training on relevant soft skills, and the University of Cologne offers the possibility to participate in mentoring programs. Moreover, the IDEA-S4S will provide an international framework where you will get in contact with stakeholders that can be relevant for the next steps in your career and where to grow your scientific network. We will organize visiting periods and summer schools to increase your visibility as a scientist, and there is also the possibility of getting other advanced training or language courses. Finally, Cologne, as well as Bologna for the visiting periods, are vibrant international cities welcoming students from all over the world, rich of culture and exciting traditions to discover.

Applications. If you are interested, send your CV and a cover letter describing your motivation, background, training and research interests, certificates and also hobbies and passions. Add the contact information of two people which can be asked for reference and specify the PhD position title in the documentation. Provide all the material in a single PDF of less than 5 MB via email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Applications are reviewed until the position is filled.

Selection. The selection for the positions will be solely on merit without regard to gender, religion, national origin, political affiliation, marital or family status or other differences. Preference will be given to persons with disabilities among equally qualified applicants.

Meteorologist, Physicist, or Engineer (m/f/d)

The Environmental Physics group at the Centre for Applied Geoscience (University of Tübingen,
Germany) studies turbulent atmospheric flows using small, automatically operating unmanned air-craft systems (UAS) and ground-station networks.

Our main interests are the turbulent energy and momentum exchange between the earth's surface and the lower atmosphere (boundary-layer meteorology), the interaction of turbulent flows with wind turbines and orography, and aerosol particle transport in the lower atmosphere. We develop fast meteorological sensors (especially for our UAS), calibration methods, and software for data analysis.

Currently, we are looking for a
Meteorologist, Physicist, or Engineer (m/f/d)
The tasks for the position in the project include:
• performing flights with research UAS on meteorological field campaigns
• maintenance and preparation of our UAS
• analysis of measured data
• co-operation with other team members and our partner institutions
• publication of the results in peer-reviewed journals
The ideal candidate holds a master degree in atmospheric science, physics or engineering, with a strong experimental focus and has already experience in:
• boundary-layer meteorololgy
• environmental measurement technology and sensors
• data analysis and statistics in atmospheric science and fluid dynamics
• UAS / model-aircraft operation and control
• Linux and Python programming
The position is available as soon as possible and will be open until filled. Salary will be according to the German public service (E 13 TV-L, part-time 75 % or full-time 100 %, in consultation
with the applicant). The position is temporary, limited to 3 years maximum, through various third-party funding.
The university is committed to equal opportunities and diversity. It, therefore, takes an individual’s situation into account and asks for relevant information. People with disabilities will be given preferential
consideration if they are equally qualified. The University of Tübingen strives to increase the proportion of women in research and strongly encourages qualified women to apply.
Please send your application (including application letter, statement of research interests, CV, certificates) by email (one PDF file only!), referring to announcement code 'umphy-2023-1', until 15th March, 2023, to:

Prof. Dr. Jens Bange (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), with CC to:
Dr. Andreas Platis (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

New job offers from the PROBE network: March 2023