Postdoc on Resilience of Forests to Air Pollution and Climate Extremes — Penn State Meteorology and Atmospheric Science

The Grassland Sciences group is a vibrant and international working group at the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich. We are looking for a reliable, enthusiastic, and highly motivated postdoc with a passion for science to join our team in Zurich. Our research focuses on process- and system-understanding of the biosphere-atmosphere greenhouse gas exchange of forests and agroecosystems, in particular on their response to management and climate.

This position is embedded in a project on the Impacts of Air Pollution and Climate Extremes on the Resilience of European Forests (CERES), a collaboration with Prof. Mana Gharun at the University of Münster. We aim to improve the mechanistic understanding of how changes in tree ecophysiology in response to air pollution and climate extremes drive the forest ecosystem’s CO2 and H2O fluxes and thus its capacity to sequester carbon and its evaporative cooling. We will combine long-term deposition simulations, local meteorological measurements, existing tree level growth and water use measurements with whole ecosystem flux measurements to identify ecophysiological resistance and recovery responses to climate extremes under different air pollution along a climatic gradient in Europe. Moreover, we will use statistical (e.g., random forest, generalised additive models) and process-based (e.g., SPA) models to project future forest responses to global change drivers.

• Compilation of existing, large data sets across Europe
• Identification of forest resistance and resilience to deposition and climate extremes
• Linking tree level (dendrometer and sapflow data) with forest level (eddy covariance fluxes) functioning for 20+ forest sites in Europe using different approaches
• Prediction of future forest functioning under climate extremes using a range of  modelling techniques (both empirical/statistical or mechanistic)
• Assistance in teaching at Bachelor´s and Master´s levels (in English), depending on research experience, and support in student supervision
• Optional: Responsibility of an eddy covariance site within the Swiss FluxNet

The position (80 to 100% employment are possible) is funded for up to three years. Salary and social benefits are provided according to ETH Zurich rules.The starting date is preferentially 1 October 2024 (or upon agreement).

• Applicants must hold a PhD or doctoral degree with a strong proven research background in micrometeorology, greenhouse gas exchange, tree and/or ecosystem physiology
• Relevant research experience can be based on observations, modelling, or statistical analyses
• Excellent command of large data analyses as well as very good English language skills are mandatory
• Experiences in teaching and student supervision are a plus