Postdoctoral Research Associate (PDRA) in Polar Atmospheric Dynamics

The closing date for applications is 23.59 on 21 September 2025

Interviews will be held: 8 October 2025

By reference to the applicable SOC code for this role, sponsorship may be possible under the Skilled Worker Route. Applicants wishing to consider the SWR must ensure that they are able to meet the points requirement before applying. There is further information about this on the UK Visas and Immigration Website.

The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth and uncertainty over future climate change has severe consequences for decision making in the Arctic and mid-latitudes. Increased human activity in the region, partly due to the dramatically reducing summer sea-ice extent, increases vulnerability to high impact weather. Mitigating these risks demands better forecasts, but to make more confident predictions of both extreme weather and future climate change we need to address a critical foundational knowledge gap.

While polar atmospheric dynamics is generally considered to be similar to that in mid-latitudes, our recent work challenges that assumption, highlighting several aspects of weather system dynamics that are fundamentally different, with implications for their inherent predictability and interaction with climate. Here we explore a new paradigm in which polar dynamics is typically dominated by vortices interacting across a broad range of scales, contrasting the dominance of wave-like features existing on jet streams in mid-latitudes.

You will work with other researchers in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, one of the world’s largest research centres focusing on the science of weather and climate, researchers at the University of Oxford, and partners including the Met Office. Your tasks are to contribute to work characterising Arctic flow structures and their scales, exploring parameter space for vortex behaviour using theory and idealised model simulations, testing the relevance of the new paradigm using case studies observed using during the NERC-funded Arctic Summertime Cyclones flight campaign of 2022 and assessing the implications of the research for Arctic predictability. You will analyse data from the latest regional reanalysis, use a quasi-geostrophic idealised model and use operational and bespoke Met Office model output for case study analysis.

You will have:

• a PhD in atmospheric science, engineering, physics or mathematics (or a closely related subject), or expect shortly to obtain this, or equivalent research experience
• strong skills in the analysis of atmospheric observational and/or model or reanalysis data and its interpretation
• experience of the implementation and critical assessment of idealised and/or complex atmospheric numerical models
• good communication skills and the disposition to collaborate effectively with both internal and external project members
• the ability to apply your skills and knowledge to analysis of atmospheric dynamics in polar regions.

Contact details for advert

Contact Name: Suzanne Gray
Contact Job Title: Professor of Meteorology
Contact Email address: s.l.gray@reading.ac.uk

Alternative Contact Name: John Methven
Alternative Contact Job Title: Professor in atmospheric dynamics
Alternative Contact Email address: j.methven@reading.ac.uk

The University is committed to having a diverse and inclusive workforce, supports the gender equality Athena SWAN Charter and the Race Equality Charter, and champions LGBT+ equality. We are a Disability Confident Employer (Level 2). Applications for job-share, part-time and flexible working arrangements.

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