CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellowship in Regional Sea-level Projections Ready for Adaptation Planning

• Do you have a PhD in physical oceanography, meteorology, and/or climate science?
• Lead the generation of reliable sea-level projections that facilitate effective adaptation planning
• Be part of the CSIRO Environment team in this exciting 3-year postdoctoral role

CSIRO Early Research Career (CERC) Postdoctoral Fellowships provide opportunities to scientists and engineers who have completed their doctorate and have less than three years of relevant postdoctoral work experience. These fellowships aim to develop the next generation of future leaders of the innovation system.

Australia, as an island nation, faces vulnerability due to sea-level rise (SLR), a phenomenon driven by global factors such as ocean thermal expansion and the melting of land ice. Despite advocacy for strong emission reduction under the Paris Climate Agreement, the gradual responses of deep oceans and polar ice sheets will commit society to enduring SLR impacts for centuries. Good progresses have been made in understanding SLR, enabling us to reconcile historical sea level changes reasonably well and further produce projections for future SLR by encompassing all contributing factors. Regional variations in sea-level changes often diverge substantially from global mean changes, stemming from regional ocean dynamics, contemporary changes in land ice and water storage, and vertical land motion including long-term adjustments since the last Glacial Maximum.

The CERC Fellow will address this critical research area, characterized by substantial socioeconomic implications, by bridging existing knowledge gaps in regional sea-level projections. For instance, recent assessments in IPCC AR5 and AR6 presented notably differing regional sea-level projections around Australia. Stakeholders seek detailed and dependable sea-level projections with reduced uncertainty, currently lacking in availability.  Taking the lead, the CERC Fellow will generate reliable sea-level projections in high spatial resolution, employing dynamic downscaling through regional ocean general circulation models. The focus will involve designing and implementing regional downscaling experiments, evaluating sensitivity to model selection, parameterization, and configuration, and identifying an optimal model setup. Innovative techniques for downscaling various sea-level processes together will also be explored. Ultimately, the aim is to develop high-resolution regional sea-level projections that facilitate effective adaptation planning and policymaking to address the issue of SLR in Australia.