PhD Research Fellow in past abrupt climate and ocean circulation changes (palaeoceanography)

Updated: over 1 year ago
Job Type: FullTime
Deadline: 09 Dec 2022

There is a vacancy for a PhD Research Fellow in past abrupt climate and ocean circulation changes at the Department of Earth Science and the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research at the University of Bergen.The position is for a fixed-term period of 3 years with the possibility of a 4th year with compulsory other work (e.g. teaching duties at the Department).

The position is funded through the Centre for Climate Dynamics at the University of Bergen. The Centre for Climate Dynamics is a collaborative organization administratively located at the University of Bergen and has earmarked funding from the Ministry of Education, presently up to and including 2026. The Centre draws upon the expertise developed by - and the accomplishments of - the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research since its inception as a national Centre of Excellence in 2002. The BCCR combines expertise in climate dynamics from its partners: the University of Bergen , NORCE , Institute of Marine Research , and the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre. The BCCR is one of Europe's largest and most recognized research environments for the understanding of climate variability and change. BCCCRs vision is to be the leading international centre for predicting Arctic-Atlantic climate change in a global context and be the key national provider of climate knowledge. The thematic research areas of the centre are global climate, polar climate, hazards, and carbon. In all research areas, modern observations, model simulations, and reconstructions from the geological record are used, often in combination, to derive robust knowledge on the climate system. The Bjerknes Centre is an active international and open environment for PhD students and early career scientists.

About the project:

Knowledge of the ocean, atmosphere, cryosphere changes and their interactions is essential to understand how abrupt climate transitions in the Earth system occur. In particular, the ventilation and circulation of deep and intermediate waters, and their climate sensitivity, represent major knowledge gaps in our understanding of the operation of the climate system. Interior water mass ventilation transmits polar changes throughout the ocean, impacting global nutrient cycling and productivity, overturning circulation, atmospheric CO2 uptake, ocean oxygenation and global modes of climate variability. Thus, they play an integral role in the coupled climate system and have been shown to be sensitive responders to ocean, atmosphere, and cryosphere changes such as those currently underway in polar and subpolar regions. Yet their long-term response to ongoing climate change, their underlying sensitivity, thresholds, and ultimate consequences, remain highly uncertain. More knowledge of the ocean beyond the brief instrumental period is urgently needed to constrain the variability and climate sensitivity of interior ocean ventilation on longer (multi-decadal to millennial) timescales.

This PhD project will constrain past ocean variability to test key theories for how ongoing climate changes could alter ocean circulation, regional climate, ocean anoxia, carbon uptake, and nutrient availability and productivity. In particular, changes on societally relevant (e.g. multidecadal-centennial) timescales will be investigated in order to determine the sensitivity and thresholds of intermediate ocean ventilation to periods of past circumpolar warming. These will be used to determine key tipping points in the ocean response to climate changes and the biogeochemical cycling they modulate.

Work tasks:

  • Preparing foraminifera samples for analysis (including wet-sieving sediment samples, picking foraminifera under a microscope, cleaning, and weighing)
  • Scientific data analysis and interpretation, also possibly in collaboration with climate modelers.
  • The project may also involve field work (cruises/expeditions) to gather sample material.


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