Postdoc: Historic Land Use reconstruction for the Global Carbon Project

The largest uncertainty in the Global Carbon Budget (GCB) is in emissions from land-use and land-cover change (LULCC), which has an uncertainty of approximately 60%. This is mainly because, until now, we have lacked the tools and data to quantify emissions from deforestation and degradation in the tropics with sufficient accuracy and temporal consistency, and to capture recent afforestation in many temperate regions.

Your job
The legacy of LULCC decisions today will impact the remaining carbon budget required to achieve climate targets in the coming decades. The incompatibility in the application of these modeling methods presents a fundamental challenge to close the GCB. GCB is the most comprehensive source of data and information about regional-to-global scale carbon fluxes and is updated annually and published at the UNFCCC COP meetings every year. The Combining LAnd-use, modeling and Remote-sensing to Transform carbon budgets (CLARiTy) project will reduce the persistently high land flux uncertainties by an order of magnitude. Achieving this goal will require a combination of new datasets, a deeper process-understanding, sophisticated models and an improved experimental design.

The aim of CLARiTy is to close the GCB by delivering and operationalizing a consistent data-driven framework for GCB updates and providing accurate estimates of the terrestrial CO2 sources and sinks. CLARiTy will also resolve discrepancies in GCB land components to fully reconcile GCB with country-level estimates by National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, contributing to a better informed Global Stocktake.

One of your tasks is to improve the existing land change dataset HYDE (History of the Global Environment, Klein Goldewijk et al., 2017) and to develop a new dataset by connecting to the high-resolution, multi-year Earth Observation data (HILDA+ dataset), hence adding new historical land use classes such as forest, natural grasslands and barren. You will benefit from the expertise of two co-leads in the CLARiTy project: Kees Klein Goldewijk, one of world’s leading researchers on historical land use reconstructions and developer of the HYDE database at the Land Change Lab of Utrecht University; and Richard Fuchs/Karin Winkler, developers of the HILDA+ database at Wageningen University Research (WUR, The Netherlands) and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, both now based at Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany).

You are a motivated team player, have experience in modelling using programming language(s), and have completed your PhD degree in Earth Sciences, Environmental Science, Climate Science, Remote Sensing or a related discipline by the time the position starts. Furthermore, you have:

• strong and demonstrable skills in running or developing Earth System models (shown by a relevant master research project experience or course study);
• a theoretical background and an interest in carbon cycling especially land change and land use emission processes, land cover dynamics, human perturbations, and climate change (shown by a relevant master research project experience or courses);
• strong analytical skills;
• excellent communication skills;
• fluency in the use of Python or a similar programming language;
• proficiency in spoken and written English.

• A position for three years in an international, interdisciplinary consortium funded through CLARiTy (initially for one year with an extension to a total of three years upon a successful assessment in the first year);
• a working week of 38 hours and a gross monthly salary between €3,546 and €5,538 (salary scale 10 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 terms of employment laid down in the CAO NU, Utrecht University also offers a range of its own schemes for employees. This includes arrangements for professional development, various types of leave, and options for sports and cultural activities. You can also tailor your employment conditions through our Terms of Employment Options Model. In this way, we encourage you to keep investing in your personal and professional development. For more information, please visit Working at Utrecht University.

A better future for everyone. This ambition motivates our scientists in executing their leading research and inspiring teaching. At Utrecht University, the various disciplines collaborate intensively towards major strategic themes. Our focus is on Dynamics of Youth, Institutions for Open Societies, Life Sciences and Pathways to Sustainability. Sharing science, shaping tomorrow.

Utrecht University’s Faculty of Geosciences studies the Earth: from the Earth’s core to its surface, including man’s spatial and material utilisation of the Earth – always with a focus on sustainability and innovation. With 3,400 students (BSc and MSc) and 720 staff, the faculty is a strong and challenging organisation. The Faculty of Geosciences is organised in four Departments: Earth Sciences, Human Geography & Spatial Planning, Physical Geography, and Sustainable Development.

For more information about this position, please contact Dr Kees Klein Goldewijk at c.g.m.kleingoldewijk@uu.nl.

Candidates for this vacancy will be recruited by Utrecht University.