Research Fellow in Atmospheric Ice Nucleation

Would you like to help to help to reduce uncertainty in cloud-climate feedbacks through new field work, do you have an established background in experimental cloud and aerosol research and do you want to further your career in a one of the world’s leading atmospheric science institutes?  

You will become a key member of the Ice Nucleation group in the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds. You will work on the M-Phase (Resolving climate sensitivity associated with shallow mixed phase cloud in the oceanic mid- to high latitudes) and also the new IceSO (Measuring the variability in ice-nucleating particles over the Southern Ocean to reduce uncertainty in cloud-climate feedbacks) projects.  These projects are tackling important questions at the core of one of the largest uncertainties in global climate projections – the properties of low-level oceanic clouds and the influence or aerosol particles. Model radiative biases over the Southern Ocean (SO) are largely due to a lack of low-level supercooled liquid clouds that results in far too much solar radiation making it to the surface, a sea that is too warm and global cloud feedback that is too negative. The balance between supercooled water and ice is central to defining the effects of clouds on climate and climate change, yet this balance is very poorly represented by current climate models. A key goal is to substantially improve our understanding of the sources and properties of the ice-nucleating particles (INPs) that initiate these critical changes in cloud phase, and thereby reduce uncertainty in climate projections. 

This position will involved a combination of managing the long-term deployment of a PINE INP instrument at the Cape Grim Kennaook field station in Tasmania, running a 1 month long intensive observation period and ship deployment of PINE, analysing size resolved composition aerosol measurements, processing data from a ship cruise with PINE from 2022.  For a more detailed list of duties see the full advert (ENVEE1853 - Research Fellow in Atmospheric Ice Nucleation - JD.pdf).

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