Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is filling the position of
Data Scientist in the Technical Support Unit
The position is located in the Paris area (Plateau de Saclay, France).
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The IPCC was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to provide policymakers with rigorous, transparent, and objective scientific assessments on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options. The IPCC is now undertaking its Seventh Assessment (AR7) cycle. The IPCC Working Group I (WGI) assess the physical science underpinning past, present, and future climate change. The WGI Technical Support Unit (TSU) provides scientific, technical, operational and communications support that underpin and implement the WGI assessment.
The Technical Support Unit (TSU)
The TSU works at the unique IPCC interface between science and policy in the provision of the climate knowledge and information that is relevant for policy needs and decision making. The team is responsible for facilitating and implementing the assessment process undertaken by the author teams and overseen by the WGI Bureau. We are seeking someone who is highly motivated to join a team that spans different areas of expertise including climate sciences, visual design and communication, digital information development and management, and international project management, and will strengthen the team’s expertise in data science. The team is hosted by Université Paris-Saclay and located in the facilities of Ecole normale supérieure (ENS) Paris-Saclay in the Paris area.
The Data Scientist Role Under the supervision of the Head of Science Team, the Data Scientist’s primary area of responsibility is the development of long-term curation of open-source software for figures and data used within the WGI AR7 and under the F.A.I.R. principles. WGI AR7 has an opportunity to build on the significant progress made within the Sixth Assessment cycle in terms of data handling and accessibility of code for producing figures and tables for transparency and traceability and to ensure the accessibility of assessed model and observational data. This is important to build public trust in the assessment process as whole, as well as supporting the work of the broader research community.
The successful candidate will set-up a full process and collaborate closely with the AR7 authors (about 200 scientists), training and working with chapter teams, the TSU, the WGI Bureau and the IPCC Task Group on Data to establish best practices for the development of common software for the figures produced by chapters. Assessed data provenance, accessibility and curation will build on activities such as the Earth System Grid Federation and the IPCC Data Distribution Centre for sourcing data products and analysis scripts used in the assessment and to provide long-term discoverable archival solutions.
We are looking for someone who is enthusiastic in promoting the value of data and its accessibility and usability by different user communities around the world and in fostering open-source community practices, data literacy and computational skills for data management and analysis for climate science information.
Requirements
- PhD or Master, with training in data science and climate science;
- Proficiency in programming and data processing languages (Python, R or matlab, etc.) and optionally compiled languages such as C or Fortran
- Knowledge of more than one coding environment would be an advantage;
- Knowledge and practice of FAIR implementation tools (metadata standards, data formats, data access protocols)
- Experience in open-source community development, code and data versioning (e.g. github, bitbucket, etc) and the development of best practices;
- Experience with processing, analysis, visualization and interpretation of global or regional climate datasets;
- Familiarity with data and software citation.
Attributes
- Self-starter, a motivated collaborative thinker that seeks and creates opportunities;
- High mobility and motivation to work in an international team with a common long-term goal;
- Ability to plan, organize and execute multi-task problems to meet deadlines;
- A strong team player who is willing to step up to support others as needed and is looking forward to inspiring interactions with the international climate science community;
- Capacity to respect time constraints and stress-resistance;
- Proficiency in written and spoken English; working knowledge of French would be an asset;
- Previous experience of the IPCC or other international activities would be an asset.
Application
The position is a fixed term contract from Université Paris-Saclay for 3 years, with the possibility of extension.
Please send by 4 February 2024 at the latest, your application consisting of a letter of motivation, curriculum vitae, and two referees to Clotilde Péan, Head of the WGI TSU.