PhD Position: Regional to global Earth System Modelling

The North Sea is a highly productive and heavily exploited continental shelf sea that absorbs significant quantities of atmospheric CO2. But the fate of absorbed CO2 is highly uncertain, in particular the balance between outflow into the Atlantic Ocean and burial in sediments, so we cannot accurately project how this may change in the future. In the NoSE project “The role of the North Sea in the Atlantic Ocean biogeochemical system: North Sea-Atlantic Exchange”, a multidisciplinary consortium of researchers (NIOZ, Delft University of Technology, University of Groningen, Utrecht University, and several international partners) will determine the past, present and future role of the North Sea within the wider biogeochemical system of the Atlantic Ocean. Focusing on the Norwegian Trench, which is both the main outflow route to the Atlantic Ocean and the main place where sediments accumulate within the North Sea, we will investigate the transport and conversion processes that regulate carbon and nutrient exchange between land, shelf sea and open ocean through a combination of oceanographic research expeditions and computer modelling. By linking these results to the paleo-record from seafloor sediments, NoSE will reveal new insights into how the cycling of carbon and nutrients in the North Sea and their exchange with the Atlantic Ocean have varied over the past thousands of years and how they may continue to evolve in the future.

In this PhD-project, the in-house Earth System Model (ESM) EC-Earth (www.ec-earth.org ), a state-of-the-art global climate-carbon cycle model will be used to simulate climate (atmosphere, ocean, ice), vegetation, marine biochemistry, ocean primary production, phytoplankton composition, and nutrient distributions. Specifically, the ESM will be improved so as to minimize biases with the regional-scale model. The improved model will then, in the context of the multi-model CMIP6, be applied to make future projections/scenarios of the coupled marine climate-phytoplankton system in the NoSE-North Atlantic region and identify/quantify biochemical feedbacks governing these changes. Using the ESM, the impacts of the NoSE region on the global carbon cycle and ocean carbon storage will be assessed (dissolved CO2 storage and the biological pump), and intermodel differences in order to link these to mechanisms that govern the response quantified. In this way, future carbon cycle changes in the NoSE region in relation to North-Atlantic and global response including uncertainties can be inferred. EC-Earth in the standard resolution is part of CMIP6 (Climate Model Intercomparison Project phase 6); model output from the multi-model ensemble of CMIP6 will be used to assess intermodel uncertainty by comparing EC-Earth results with other models in terms of biases, variability and future projections. In this interdisciplinary project you will work closely together with two postdocs (NIOZ, Texel/Yerseke) who will simulate local and regional processes, as well as with several other PhD candidates and postdocs working on field observations and interpretation.

You will receive excellent training through innovative research projects, advanced courses and training opportunities, complemented by workshops on generic research, transferable skills and teaching. As a PhD candidate, you are committed to conduct independent and original scientific research, to report on this research in international publications and presentations, and to present the results of the research in a PhD dissertation, to be completed within 4 years. You are expected to contribute 10% of the overall workload to teaching. You will be stationed partly at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) in De Bilt, and partly at the University of Groningen.