Scientist - Climate Reanalysis
ECMWF - European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
Bonn, Germany

Job reference: VN25-025
Salary and Grade: Grade A2 EUR 89,168.64 EUR (Germany) NET annual basic salary + other benefits
Deadline for applications: 26/05/2025
Department: Research
Contract type: STF-P
Contract Duration: To 30 September 2028

The role

ECMWF is recruiting a scientist within the Climate Reanalysis Team of the ECMWF Research Department. Reanalysis touches on many aspects of modelling the atmosphere, land, and ocean, dealing with in-situ and satellite observations, data assimilation techniques, and generating products in an operational environment. Our current state-of-the-art product, ERA5 is extremely popular and has been produced at ECMWF on behalf of the European Commission Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). It has a vast range of applications and is used by many researchers, private companies, governments and authoritative international bodies such as the IPCC. Recently, ERA5 has also become a main source for training of data-driven weather forecasting models. By the time that you join ECMWF, production of our next reanalysis, ERA6, will have started, which will be an exciting time.

Your role will be related to the preparation and testing of historical observations that will be ingested in ERA6. Together with the team, you will also be involved in safeguarding the quality of our products and be involved in model and data assimilation aspects of reanalysis, and respond to user queries, where required. In addition, you will contribute to more technical aspects of our products.

About the Team

Funded by C3S, you will join the Climate Reanalysis Team (CRT) which is part of the ECMWF Research Department (RD). We develop, maintain and safeguard the quality of state-of-the-art global climate reanalysis. In collaboration with C3S contractors, we also oversee the collection of historical satellite and in-situ observations that, for example, feed into future reanalysis systems and the production of regional reanalysis for the European domain.

The production of global climate reanalysis is an important activity at ECMWF with a long history. Reanalysis is an integrator of all available historical observations and transforms these into as-accurate-as-possible and easy to use global ‘maps without gaps’ of our recent climate. The latest state-of-the-art ERA5 reanalysis is an ECMWF and C3S flagship product which provides hourly global fields from 1940 onwards for many quantities of the atmosphere, land surface and ocean surface. It is highly popular and serves many users via the C3S Climate Data Store for a wide range of applications and is highly cited in the scientific literature. ERA5 is based on the same data assimilation methodology as applied in the initialisation of medium-range weather predictions, where observations are mixed with a model first guess to produce an optimal (re)analysis. We maintain ERA5 close to real time in an operational fashion. We are also starting production for ERA6, the next generation reanalysis, which has a coupling component with the ocean. Future reanalysis is aimed progressively towards fully coupled Earth system data assimilation. 

The CRT team sits within the Earth System Assimilation Section (ESAS) of RD, which is in charge of developing and optimising ECMWF’s advanced assimilation system and the exploitation of the available global satellite and in-situ network for operational Numerical Weather Prediction and reanalyses.

In addition to direct interaction with other teams in ESAS and RD on data assimilation and model aspects, you will also work closely together with teams in the ECMWF Forecast and Services Department and Computing Department on technical and production aspects of reanalysis.

About Copernicus

Copernicus is the flagship Earth observation component of the European Union (EU) space programme. Based on the exploitation of space-based and Earth observations and scientific models, Copernicus provides validated information services for land, marine, atmosphere and climate monitoring, as well as emergency management and security. These services, and their free, open and quality-assured data and tools, support a range of environmental and security applications across sectors and policy domains. ECMWF has been entrusted to operate two of these Services - the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) - on behalf of the European Commission, as well as being a contributor to the Copernicus Emergency Management Service.

The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) service provides consistent and quality-controlled information related to atmospheric composition, including air pollutants and greenhouse gases, solar energy, and climate forcing, everywhere in the world. For more information, see https://www.copernicus.eu/en/copernicus-services/atmosphere.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) service provides authoritative information about the past, present and future climate, as well as tools to enable climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies by policy makers and businesses. For more information, see https://www.copernicus.eu/en/copernicus-services/climate-change and www.copernicus.eu.

About ECMWF

ECMWF is a world leader in Numerical Weather Predictions providing high-quality data for weather forecasts and environmental monitoring. As an intergovernmental organisation, we collaborate internationally to serve our members and the wider community with global weather predictions, data and training activities that are critical to contribute to safe and thriving societies.

The success of our activities depends on the funding and partnerships of the 35 Member and Co-operating States who provide the support and direction of our work. Our talented staff together with the international scientific community, and our powerful supercomputing capabilities, are the core of a 24/7 research and operational centre with a focus on medium and long-range predictions. We also hold one of the largest meteorological data archives in the world.

Our vision: The strength of a common goal.

Our mission: Deliver global numerical weather predictions focusing on the medium-range and monitoring of the Earth system to and with our Member States.

ECMWF is a multi-site organisation, with its headquarters in Reading, UK, a data centre in Bologna, Italy, and a large presence in Bonn, Germany, as a central location for our EU-related activities. ECMWF is internationally recognised as the voice of expertise in numerical weather predictions for forecasts and climate science.

www.ecmwf.int

Role responsibilities

• Perform impact studies of historical observations as preparation to their ingestion in climate reanalysis;
• Contribute to the maintenance and development of technical aspects of our reanalysis system and products;
• Hold expertise in part of the global observing system and associated data assimilation aspects;
• Contribute to the scientific and technical safeguarding of our products during production;
• Perform diagnostics of the climate reanalysis data assimilation system, its components, and its products;
• Respond to reanalysis user questions, maintain and expand reanalysis online content, such as user documentation, in the field of expertise;
• Represent C3S reanalysis at international meetings, as required.

What we're looking for

We are looking for an enthusiastic scientist with a solid relevant experience who also enjoys the development and maintenance of our technical infrastructure. You will be closely working with many people across the organization. We expect you to bring:

• excellent analytical and problem-solving skills with a proactive and constructive approach;
• flexibility, with the ability to adapt to changing priorities;
• ability to work autonomously and as part of multidisciplinary and geographically distributed teams;

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