PhD position in the field of climate dynamics

How does a collapse of the Gulfstream system (AMOC) affect food security – and would geoengineering measures help or make it worse?

Your job
Global warming may drive a collapse or massive weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC, loosely the Gulfstream system). This would lead to significant climate change, most notably cooling over northwestern Europe. It is feared that AMOC collapse would affect regional agriculture and transport and possibly global food security. Recently, researchers from IMAU have for the first time modelled a full AMOC collapse in a full-fledged climate model, the Community Earth System Model (CESM).

Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) is a controversial, hitherto hypothetical method to cool the earth by injecting a thin reflective cloud layer into the higher atmosphere. Modelling evidence so far suggests that SAI may avert AMOC weakening if properly implemented, but if applied too late, cooling impacts from AMOC collapse or temporary weakening and from SAI coincide, potentially exacerbating the situation. However, SAI’s ability to prevent full AMOC collapse has not yet been studied in models.

In this interdisciplinary PhD project, you will address the following research questions:

• Can timely SAI prevent AMOC collapse, and is there a deadline after which it is too late to save AMOC?
• How does AMOC collapse, as well as successful or unsuccessful attempts to prevent it using SAI, affect food production?
• How would AMOC collapse impact food trade and food security?
• How can the global food system be made more resilient to AMOC collapse?

To do so, you will work with researchers from climate physics, hydrology, sustainability science and complex systems dynamics and apply a range of different models.

Starting from the recent AMOC tipping simulations performed at IMAU, we will first investigate the ability of SAI to prevent AMOC tipping if used well in advance, and to revert (or worsen) ongoing tipping. Next, we study the impact of AMOC collapse without SAI, as well as successful and unsuccessful SAI deployment, on food production. To this end, we use CESM output to force the hydrological/crop model PCR-GLOBWB and simulate the impact on food production. Finally, a global food trade model is used to study the impacts of AMOC collapse on global food security.

We are looking for inspiring and driven candidates who have:

• a MSc in physics, applied mathematics, climate physics, geosciences or a related field;
• excellent skills in scientific programming and numerical / statistical analysis of simulated and observed data;
• a versatile mind and openness to work on a problem from various angles and disciplines
• basic knowledge of (geophysical) fluid dynamics;
• good writing and communication skills (English);
• experience with climate modelling or complexity science approaches such as network analysis (considered an advantage).

• The opportunity to work in and with a team of leading experts;
• a job for 4 years. After 18 months you will be reviewed. If positive, then it will be 4 years;
• a fulltime working week and a gross monthly salary between € 3.059 and € 3.881 in the case of full-time employment (salary scale P under the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO NU));
• 8% holiday pay and 8.3% year-end bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave and flexible terms of employment based on the CAO NU.

In addition to the employment conditions laid down in the cao for Dutch Universities, Utrecht University has a number of its own arrangements. For example, there are agreements on professional development, leave arrangements and sports. We also give you the opportunity to expand your terms of employment yourself via the Employment Conditions Selection Model. This is how we like to encourage you to continue to grow. For more information, please visit Working at Utrecht University.

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