Research Scientist (North Atlantic Storms and Climate Change)

The closing date for applications is 23.59 on 21 November 2025

Interview date: 8 December 2025

Full time, Fixed term (3 years)

The position is available on, or shortly after, 1st April 2026.

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.

Are you a researcher with interests in atmospheric dynamics, high impact weather and climate change? We seek a talented Post-Doctoral Research Scientist to study the impacts of climate change on extreme, diabatically-driven, North Atlantic storms in present and future climates under the NERC-funded ‘Diabatic Rossby Waves: An Unexplored Climate Threat’ project.

Despite substantial effort aimed at understanding how climate change will influence extratropical cyclones (ETCs) in future, important uncertainties remain. The emerging consensus is a trend towards fewer ETCs overall but an increase in the intensity of the most extreme cases. This project will take a process-based approach to understand this change in climate risk by investigating extreme ETCs that follow the diabatic Rossby wave (DRW) development mechanism. It will utilise the unique capabilities of a new large ensemble of high-resolution climate model simulations produced within NCAS – the CANARI Large Ensemble – to assess for the first time the ability of state-of-the-art climate models to simulate DRWs and their response to climate change.

Why Join Us?

This role provides an exciting opportunity to work at the intersection of climate and high impact weather within the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) at the University of Reading. As part of a well-established research group, you will work in a collaborative and supportive environment with access to cutting-edge resources and opportunities for career development.

Key responsibilities include:

• Implement, adapt and refine an existing DRW detection algorithm for use with climate model outputs and apply it to the new CANARI Large Ensemble dataset.
• Assess the representation of DRWs in the climate model against reanalysis datasets and quantify projected future changes including in their potential for explosive deepening
• Perform km-scale dynamical downscaling to examine the role of model resolution on the evolution pathways of DRWs and their impacts.

You will have:

• A PhD (or equivalent research experience) in a physics- or maths-based topic, or expect to obtain this shortly
• Good programming skills in data processing and visualization (ideally Python)
• Good understanding of the physical processes relating to weather and climate

The University of Reading is a campus-based University and there it is a general expectation for colleagues to be present on campus for most of the working week.

We welcome applications from both external and internal candidates

Contact Name: Ben Harvey
Contact Job Title: Senior Research Scientist
Contact Email address: b.j.harvey@reading.ac.uk

Alternative Contact Name: Ambrogio Volonté
Alternative Contact Job Title: Senior Research Fellow
Alternative Contact Email address: a.volonte@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 are welcomed and will be considered in line with business needs.

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