Position Details

CARBON: Scale Sensitivities of CO2 Fluxes in the Southern Ocean

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Job Description: 3 MSc or PhD as well as 2 Post Doctorate opportunities in the SOCCO carbon project

Introduction:This project is motivated by the core hypothesis that the magnitude and phasing of the seasonal cycle of air –sea exchange CO2 exchange, and other carbon fluxes, are sensitive to the interaction of fine spatial (meso & sub-mesoscale) in the ocean and temporal (seasonal & sub-seasonal) scales of forcing from the atmosphere. How these scales interact is not well understood and poorly represented in Earth System Models, which may contribute to weakening the climate sensitivity of the seasonal cycle of modeled ocean carbon fluxes. Addressing this is an urgent research challenge in order to improve the confidence in long term climate projections.

Work Package 1:SOSCEX III - Observing and analyzing the scale sensitivities of CO2 fluxes in the Southern Ocean and how they influence the characteristics of the seasonal cycle. The hypothesis is that the biological pump dominates the CO2 flux characteristics in the Sub-Antarctic Zone (SAZ) and ocean physics does so south of the Polar Front Zone (PFZ). Requirements: Honors or Masters in oceanography, physics, mathematics, chemistry or engineering

Work Package 2:Scale sensitivity investigations using high-resolution dynamical models. Quantifying and understanding how fine scale dynamics influence the seasonal cycle characteristics of Carbon cycle fluxes that influence the large –scale carbon climate links of the Southern Ocean Requirements: Honors or Masters in oceanography, physics, mathematics, chemistry or engineering

Work Package 3:Resolving interannual variability and trends of CO2 fluxes in the Southern Ocean through empirical models. In 2009 the global OceanObs09 conference put a challenge to the research community to reduce the uncertainty of annual mean CO2 fluxes between the ocean and the atmosphere such that it would be possible to resolve the interannual trend. This part of the study aim to contribute to this goal using a combination of empirical models and global high quality observations in the Southern Ocean. Requirements: Honors or Masters in oceanography, physics, mathematics, chemistry or engineering

We invite applications for a number of post-graduate study opportunities within the SOCCO Programme, which is a partnership between CSIR and a number of academic institutions. MSc and PhD applications are restricted to South African students but the Post-Docs are open. SOCCO is committed to supporting CSIR and partner-institutions in meeting the goals of national redress in science and engineering.

Expression of interest:Please send CV and expression of interest to: Dr Pedro Monteiro at pmonteir@csir.co.za

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