Senior/Principal Scientist (Group Leader: Forecast Performance Monitoring)

Reference no.: AP12-14

Grade: A3/A4, according to the scales of the Co-ordinated Organisations.

Location:

ECMWF Headquarters at Shinfield Park, near Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom.

Environment:

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is an international organisation supported by 34 States*.

ECMWF’s main computing facility includes supercomputers, archiving and data handling systems. ECMWF is connected to the meteorological telecommunication system and to its Member States via efficient networks linking 44 countries. A detailed description is available at:

The vacancy is in the Meteorological Operations (Met Ops) Section of the Operations Department.

The Met Ops Section provides a number of important services for ECMWF. These include monitoring and assessing the meteorological performance of the ECMWF operational forecasting systems; providing a range of products to meet users’ requirements; and liaising with users to improve and broaden the use and understanding of ECMWF meteorological products.

This post is to lead the group within the Met Ops Section that focuses on the meteorological performance of ECMWF’s operational and pre-operational forecasting and assimilation systems. The work of the group maintains and helps to improve the quality of forecasts by identifying and diagnosing meteorological problems and deficiencies and providing prompt feedback to model developers and forecast users.

The main duties of the post are:

• to lead, organise, manage and report on the work of the forecast performance monitoring group;
  
  
• to act as focal point for the meteorological quality and performance of the ECMWF forecasting and assimilation systems;
  
  
• to monitor the operational and pre-operational forecasting and assimilation systems from a meteorological point of view and provide relevant feedback to model developers;
  
  
• to follow up actions as needed when problems have been detected during the daily monitoring;
  
  
• to evaluate the meteorological performance of the ECMWF forecasting system (including predictions of severe weather events) from the forecaster’s perspective.

Qualifications:

A university degree or equivalent in meteorology or a related subject is required, together with substantial experience and understanding of global forecasting and data assimilation systems for operational numerical weather prediction, which at ECMWF include the ensemble of 4D-Var data assimilations (EDA), medium-range, monthly and seasonal ensemble forecasts.

Strengthening the way ECMWF monitors performance is of strategic importance to ensure the quality of ECMWF’s meteorological output. The monitoring of system performance needs to be extended to include all relevant aspects of model and assimilation behaviour. The ideal candidate will have the expertise and in-depth knowledge to lead this work, including the development of innovative new forecast monitoring techniques to improve understanding of system performance. 

Candidates should have excellent communication skills.

The working languages of ECMWF are English, French and German. Candidates must be able to work effectively in English and a good knowledge of one of the other working languages would be also desirable. Interviews will be conducted in English.

Remuneration:

The successful candidate will be recruited at the A3 grade and the annual basic salary will be £62,230.56 net of tax.

However, for an exceptional candidate recruitment at the A4 grade may be considered.

www.ecmwf.int/newsevents/employment/en/conditions_en

Starting date:

As soon as possible.

Length of contract:

Maximum of four years for initial contract, with the possibility of renewal.

Applications:

An application form in Word format can be downloaded from here (162kb) and completed on-line. If you download, you may (if near to the closing date) e-mail the completed form only back to ECMWF at jobs@ecmwf.int. Please note, however, that you must still send your full application form together with all the attachments to ECMWF by post. Under no circumstances should you e-mail your attachments.

Closing date: Completed applications for this post must reach the Personnel Section of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts not later than 28 September 2012.

* The ECMWF Member States are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

The ECMWF Co-operating States are Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Hungary, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Morocco, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.