3-year post-doctoral position at LSCE: joint assimilation of atmospheric CO₂ and co-emitted tracers from space and ground based networks to infer CO₂ emissions

Fossil fuel and cement CO₂ emissions are the largest forcing of climate change and they are so far only estimated by inventories, with uncertainties arising from the carbon content and the oxidized fraction of carbon fuels. Uncertainties in emissions are larger when considering countries and cities rather than nations. Satellite imagery of column CO₂ and tracers co-emitted by the combustion of carbon fuels offer the possibility to improve these emissions estimates at various scales, using atmospheric inversion techniques. Several imagers onboard satellites are proposed in Europe, in the US and in China, but research is needed about how to best combine information on CO₂ from space and from the ground, and on fossil fuel tracers like radiocarbon in atmospheric CO₂, CO and NO_x to reduce uncertainty in emissions, at scales going from cities to regions and up to countries. 

The successful candidate will develop and use the high-resolution atmospheric inversion model developed by LSCE to estimate the performance of future space-borne CO₂ imagery in quantifying CO₂ natural and anthropogenic surface fluxes over Western and Central Europe. She/he will also put forward recommendations on how to best design the surface networks to complement the satellite imagery. For this task, the LSCE inversion system will have to be enhanced to assimilate data not only from satellites but also from ground based networks, including measurements of pollutant species co-emitted with CO₂ by the combustion of fossil fuels. 

The successful candidate will work within the CO₂ Human Emissions (CHE) EU-funded project coordinated by ECMWF. CHE aims to provide key modelling support in preparation for a European capacity to monitor CO₂ anthropogenic emissions with CO₂ spectro-imagers and related measurements and models. 

She/he will work full time at LSCE (LSCE, CEA-Orme des Merisiers, 91191 Gif sur Yvette cedex, France) with the team dedicated to inverse modelling. She/he will also interact with the team dedicated to the deployment of ground based measurement sites at LSCE, with the European consortium of the CHE project and with other French and European institutes collaborating with LSCE on this topic.

She/he should have a PhD with experience and knowledge in data assimilation, in atmospheric modelling or more generally in modelling tools and statistics. She/he should be autonomous and able to work with computing tools such as Fortran and/or python, and with complex model codes in UNIX environment. She/he should also have good communication skills. 

The salary will be commensurate with experience and will include full health care and retirement pension benefits. Applications should include a CV and a cover letter, and if possible the names of two reference persons. They should be sent to Grégoire Broquet (gregoire.broquet@lsce.ipsl.fr), Frédéric Chevallier (frederic.chevallier@lsce.ipsl.fr), Philippe Ciais (philipe.ciais@cea.fr), François-Marie Bréon (fmbreon@cea.fr). The applications should be sent, and the position will start, as soon as possible.