Applications open for four three-year research fellowships

A warmer world, even one consistent with a Paris-Agreement target of 2ºC by 2100, will no doubt look very different from the one we experience today. Higher atmospheric and oceanic temperatures will be accompanied by higher sea levels, increased melting of glaciers and ice sheets, disrupted seasonal and interannual climate and weather patterns, and cascading impacts on terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

Through the newly established 7-year, $49M, New Zealand Antarctic Science Platform we aim to make projections of how our climate, oceans, ice sheets and biodiversity will change in the future. We are already part of international scientific efforts that are underway, aiming to refine global-scale future predictions in each of the aforementioned fields, but the New Zealand Antarctic Science Platform is uniquely placed to be able to deliver Antarctic-specific information that is specifically relevant to New Zealand.

We aim to generate and share the most robust and up-to-date science, bringing together researchers from across our universities and Crown Research Institutes. Our work programme will provide essential underpinning data for governmental policy makers, local council planners, engineers, economists, insurers, and the general public.

Our Future Projections work strand will be carried out through discrete disciplinary research projects but within a single modelling hub, in Wellington, New Zealand. The new Research Fellows will be co-located in this hub to maximise interdisciplinary connection, with ready access to computing resources, scientific collaborators, and with opportunities for postgraduate student supervision. The hub will be managed and facilitated by Nick Golledge, Chair of the Future Projections Expert Group of the Antarctic Science Platform.

Each fellowship is outlined here

Applications are open now, please visit out recruitment page to apply

For more information contact Melissa Climo at scienceplatform@antarcticanz.govt.nz or Nicholas.Golledge@vuw.ac.nz

Nick is an ice-sheet modeller and glaciologist based in the Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington. His expertise lies primarily in using numerical models to simulate ice sheets and ice sheet processes over a range of temporal and spatial scales, with an increasing focus on scenario-based future climate experiments and the policy relevant aspects of these simulations (sea level changes, disruption of oceanic circulation, climate thresholds and emissions targets). He is one of the Lead Authors of the ‘Oceans, Cryosphere, and Sea Level’ chapter of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).