PhD-position: Unravelling seasonal cycle in regional sea-level

The department of Estuarine and Delta Systems (EDS; principal investigator dr. Aimée Slangen) at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research (NIOZ) is looking for a highly motivated PhD student with a background in climate physics to investigate seasonal sea-level changes on regional scales using satellite data and model data. This research is funded by the ‘use of space infrastructure for earth observation and planetary research (GO)’ call from NWO and NSO.

NWO-NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research is the Dutch national oceanographic institute and principally performs academically excellent multidisciplinary, fundamental, and frontier applied marine research addressing important scientific and societal questions pertinent to the functioning of the ocean and seas. NIOZ includes the National Marine research Facilities (NMF) department that operates a fleet of research vessels and the national pool of large seagoing equipment, and supports excellence in multidisciplinary marine research, education, and policy development.

The NIOZ department of Estuarine & Delta Systems (EDS) focuses on understanding the complex interactions between organisms and their physical and chemical environment in estuaries and deltas. Our aim is producing an integrated understanding of the functioning of estuarine and delta systems, in the context of natura land human induced environmental changes, while providing the knowledge needed to utilise these systems more sustainably and to restore them.

The sea-level group, in which you will work, focuses on large-scale patterns in sea-level change, which are driving changes in coastal regions around the world.

Sea-level changes strongly vary in space and time, driven by various processes ranging from tides and storms to ocean warming and land ice mass loss. In the past decades, the sea-level community has gained a better understanding of regional sea-level variations. Satellite observations revolutionized our view of the global ocean. A step we can now also make is to increase our understanding of the temporal resolution.

Initial analyses have shown that there are substantial seasonal variations in sea-level change, with different drivers. Such changes can be relevant to coastal adaptation and protection, as impacts of sea-level rise occur at specific times of the year, for instance during the storm season. Therefore, this project’s central question is: how and why does regional sea-level change vary on seasonal time scales?

For your research, you will focus on the satellite altimetry era (since 1993), which provides the most complete information on regional and seasonal scales, both for total sea-level change (altimetry) as well as the contributions to (global and regional) sea-level change. For each of the contributions, you will analyse the observational information available, to assess the magnitude and spatial variability in the seasonal signal.

You will combine the contributions in a seasonal sea-level budget analysis to analyse what we know and what is still missing. The outcomes of this project complement ongoing efforts in our research group to understand regional 20th century sea-level changes, which will benefit coastal communities around the world in their challenge to adapt to sea-level rise.

For this PhD project you will be based at NIOZ (Yerseke), working with Dr. Aimée Slangen (daily supervisor and project lead). You will be enrolled in the graduate school of the faculty of geosciences of Utrecht University, and Prof. Dr. Roderik van de Wal will be the promotor of this project.

We seek an enthusiastic and energetic student who has a keen interest in climate physics and climate change, particularly sea level change.

We are looking for a team player with:

• An MSc degree in climate physics, physical geography, oceanography or meteorology
• Experience with analysing and processing of large and complex datasets
• Experience with Python, or another scientific programming language
• Experience and affinity with climate change research
• An open, communicative and collaborative attitude
• Strong communication…