2-year postdoctoral position at the “Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et l'Environnement (LSCE)”, located south of Paris (http://www.lsce.ipsl.fr/), using remote sensing data and modelling for the monitoring of land carbon fluxes

LSCE is opening a two-year research position within the European CARBONES project. The successful candidate will join a team of about 25 scientists entitled Inversion/assimilation/remote-sensing. S/he will more specifically interact with Fabienne Maignan, François-Marie Bréon and Philippe Peylin to work on the monitoring of global land carbon fluxes using remote sensing observations and modelling.

The CARBONES project aims at a full reanalysis of the global carbon cycle over the past 30 years through the assimilation of various long term measurements and proxies of the terrestrial and oceanic carbon-cycles. These input observations include satellite observations of the Earth reflectances, in situ ecological measurements, and CO2 atmospheric concentrations. They are combined using an innovative data assimilation system developed by the LSCE.
A first step of the work will be the analysis and intercomparison of satellite observations and model (ORCHIDEE) simulations of the vegetation dynamic. It will
also be necessary to choose the satellite product that is the most appropriate for the link with the modelling world. The successful candidate will then be in charge of the
assimilation of satellite data within the assimilation system. The aim of the assimilation procedure is to constrain and improve some parameters in the ORCHIDEE model, in particular those that control the phenological cycle. This analysis will require the development of transfer functions that link the satellite observations and the ORCHIDEE state variables. The successful candidate will report the results of the study in the peer-reviewed literature.

The candidate will join the CARBONES project team and is expected to efficiently collaborate with the corresponding partners in Europe.

Salary is commensurate with experience, and includes full social and health benefits.

Requirements
The candidate should have a PhD either on Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces or in Land Surface Modelling. In addition, the candidate should be comfortable with
computing tools such as FORTRAN and/or IDL programming and the UNIX system. Applications including CV, letter of motivation and the names of two reference
persons should be sent to François-Marie Bréon (Francois-Marie.Breon@lsce.ipsl.fr ) and Fabienne Maignan (Fabienne.Maignan@lsce.ipsl.fr).

The deadline for applying for the postdoctoral position is April 8th, 2011.