The Institute for Energy and Climate Research, Troposphere (IEK-8), investigates the chemical and physical processes in the troposphere that impact the chemical composition of the atmosphere. We are seeking for a new Ph.D. student to work within a three-year program of the Graduate School HITEC (https://www.hitec-graduate-school.de/index.php?index=9). The offered Ph.D. position will be part of the European H2020 Research and Innovation Action "Constrained aerosol forcing for improved climate projections" (FORCeS). FORCeS brings together 20 leading European research teams in order to jointly identify, constrain and efficiently parameterize the most critical processes determining aerosol radiative forcing and aerosol- and cloud-related climate feedbacks.

We are offering a

Ph.D. position: Advances in understanding nitrate aerosol formation: Kinetics and missing mechanisms

Your Job:
Atmospheric aerosols from natural and anthropogenic sources adversely affect human health and play an important role in changing the Earth's climate. Inorganic particulate nitrate constituents contribute significantly to the total aerosol mass, especially in urban areas and industrialised regions (e.g. over Europe they account for about 20% of the total dry aerosol mass). Nitrate is particularly important in the optically active submicron size range, related to its ability to efficiently scatter solar radiation and its potential to affect cloud properties. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) underscored the important role of nitrate aerosol in climate change (IPCC, 2013); however, there is large uncertainty in current models regarding the global nitrate aerosol load, its regional distribution, and its radiative forcing.

Within this Ph.D. project you will address some of the remaining challenges in atmospheric aerosol modelling by:

• developing an advance heterogeneous chemistry mechanism, a depreciated formation pathway of aerosol nitrate that is typically missing in current models
• determining the kinetic limitations of nitric acid partitioning in the coarse aerosols and its interactions with mineral dust
• simulating the formation of organic nitrates from the oxidation of biogenic volatile organic compounds by the nitrate radical
• investigating the impact of emission control policies (e.g. reducing SO2, NOx and NH3) on future nitrate aerosol formation

Your Profile:

• Master‘s degree in physics, chemistry, environmental sciences or a related field
• high interest in working in a transdisciplinary collaboration between experts on the process and climate scale
• profound programming knowledge in FORTRAN and scripting languages (e.g. Phython)
• excellent knowledge of written and oral English

Our Offer:

• an international and interdisciplinary working environment at one of Europe's largest research establishments
• excellent technical facilities, including access to one of the most powerful High Performance Computing centres in Europe
• an exciting, transdisciplinary team work within a multinational European project
• chance of participating in (international) conferences and project meetings
• broad spectrum of training in the Graduate School HITEC (http://www.hitec-graduate-school.de/) and the Forschungszentrum
• payment and social benefits based on the labour agreement of the public sector employment (TVöD) under a three-year contract starting October 2019

Forschungszentrum Jülich aims to employ more women in this area and therefore particularly welcomes applications from women.

We also welcome applications from disabled persons.


We look forward to receiving your application, preferably via our online recruitment system on our career site, quoting the reference number 2019D-158.