The Mountain Hydrology and Mass Movements research unit develops principles for sustainable water management and investigates flood and torrential processes in predominantly mountainous regions. The Glaciology group of Prof. Farinotti is part of this research unit and is situated jointly at WSL and ETH Zurich. This group sustains a diverse research portfolio spanning global glacier projections, monitoring of Swiss glaciers, glacier related hazards and fundamental processes of glacier dynamics. For the Swiss National Science Foundation-funded project GLADDER (Glacier Lakes in Antarctica: Drainage, Dynamics, Evolution and Refilling) we are looking for a qualified candidate for 1 year, extendable to 4 years, starting in March 2025 or soon thereafter as a

You will be working on a project aiming at deciphering the mechanisms responsible for the formation and dynamics of subglacial lakes in Antarctica. Many of these lakes have been found to date and the drainage and filling behaviour of a few has been documented. However, the physical processes behind their dynamics are still largely unknown. The project will use theoretical and numerical approaches to study and simulate these lakes to finally understand their dynamics.

Your responsibility will be to develop inversion capabilities for the next-generation ice flow model FastIce, for the Glacier Drainage System model GlaDS and for the coupled model. These are high-performance, GPU-accelerated models programmed in Julia. Your main task will be to make these models differentiable by implementing automatic generation of adjoints and leverage these for their inversion. Once model development is completed, you will apply these models to invert for basal properties of Antarctic catchments with active subglacial lakes. Using the inverted parameters, you will run prognostic simulations to identify the physical processes responsible for lake formation and dynamics.

You need to have a doctoral degree in a quantitative science, have a strong interest in glaciology, and have extensive previous experience with mathematical and numerical models. In addition to your passion for glaciers, you should also have a deep enthusiasm for coding, software engineering and open science. You need to be able to converse and write in English and to have published in scientific journals.

Please send your complete application to Beatrice Lamprecht, Human Resources WSL, by uploading the requested documents through our webpage. Applications via email will not be considered. Mauro Werder, phone +41 (0)44 632 40 92, will be happy to answer any questions or offer further information. WSL is committed to diversity and inclusion as core values. We actively promote gender equality and foster an open, inclusive work environment.