The School of Geographical Sciences is advertising one fully-funded NERC PhD studentship (for a 2008/09 start) for one of the following projects:

Should we geo-engineer our future climate?

Downscaling regional climate change predictions for hydrological and ecological applications in the tropical Andes

Wouter Buytaert & Paul Valdes, University of Bristol
Mathias Vuille, University of Massachusetts at Amherst/ State University of New York at Albany

Scientific Background: Predicting the effects of climate change on hydrological and ecological processes is crucial to avoid future conflicts over water and to conserve biodiversity. Results of global and regional climate models are widely available and allow the quantification of future climate change. But the scale of these models is still very coarse and many local climatic processes cannot be included for computational reasons. As such, the models are of limited use to predict climate change effects at ecosystem level. This is particularly true in mountain environments with a highly diverse hydrology and ecology. The steep topography and the delicate ecosystem balances make them particularly vulnerable for climate change.

Aim: The project aims at developing a climate downscaling model for the tropical Andes region. The mountainous wetlands and cloud forests, which form the most important natural ecosystems, are a major biodiversity hotspot. They are also the major water source for the Andean economy as well as many dryer coastal areas and are severely threatened. As such, there is a high demand for accurate predictions at ecosystem level.

Approach: The project will tackle the challenge of finding the optimal balance between model simplicity and complexity and to make optimal use of the available data. In the project, a Bayesian approach will be used to combine available statistical downscaling approaches with information about local climate dynamic to develop a hybrid dynamical - statistical downscaling model.

All candidates must fulfil the relevant eligibility criteria associated with the relevant funding body. Research Council studentships include payment of fees at the Home/EU rate and a maintenance grant (at the level recommended by research councils) for three years.

We are considering applications for the following projects (full details can be found at: http://www.ggy.bris.ac.uk/PGadmissions/physical/funded).

Further details and application forms are available at: http://www.ggy.bris.ac.uk/PGadmissions/physical, or from Theresa Andrews, Postgraduate Administration, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, University Road, Bristol, BS8 1SS. Tel: 0117 954 5977, email: geog-pgadmis@bristol.ac.uk