Postdoctoral position on urban climate modelling F/M

As a public weather and climate expert, Météo-France is at your side to contribute to your day-to-day safety and help you make the best decisions in a changing climate. Faced with dangerous weather episodes that are even more intense and more frequent as a result of climate change, our missions in the service of your safety are crucial. We mobilize our expertise and our scientific and technological excellence to help you anticipate and adapt to challenging weather and climate phenomena.

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Joining Météo France means joining a multi-site organization, located in France, overseas, etc. Météo-France is organized into central and inter-regional divisions. Below is a presentation of the department you could join :

The Centre national de recherches météorologiques (CNRM) is a joint research unit (UMR 3589) set up by the CNRS and Météo-France. Until the end of 2015, the UMR was also known as the Groupe dÉtude de lAtmosphère Météorologique. Its research activities are mainly carried out at the Météo-France sites in Toulouse, Grenoble and Lannion.

The CNRM is responsible for a large part of the research activities of Météo-France, the national weather and climate service. As a result, many of the CNRMs objectives are guided by the operational missions of Météo-France, which means that the CNRM works very closely with the production teams of the Établissement and allows research projects to be prioritised.

Priority is given to needs related to the protection of people and property: weather forecasting on several space-time scales, atmospheric physics and dynamics, climate knowledge and evolution, human-climate-atmosphere interactions, etc.

The general research theme of the VILLE team is the study of the urban climate, at different spatial and temporal scales, and using various methodological approaches, from data observation and analysis to numerical modeling. Our objectives are to refine our understanding of processes and process interactions, improve physics-based and AI-based models for weather and climate research and numerical weather prediction, and transfer our research results to urban stakeholders to guide prevention and adaptation.

Why join us ?

Embark on a stimulating adventure in the service of all, alongside men and women committed to the daily challenges posed to our society by the weather and climate. And enjoy the following benefits: flexible working hours, RTT, telecommuting, administrative restaurant or luncheon voucher, 75% contribution to public transport, contribution to health insurance, sports and cultural associations depending on the site (climbing, gym, pottery, theater, etc.).

Other benefits await you, come and discover them !

UrbanAIR is an European project aiming to build research-driven platform that equips cities with the information they need to decide where to intervene, who to protect, and what to prioritise before challenges escalate. The project is led by TU-Delft in the Netherlands.

This project addresses a global gap in mesoscale modelling, bridging the resolution valley between coarse continental forecasts and the fine, street-level realities of modern cities. It connects Destination Earth forecasts with high-resolution urban models through multi-scale integration.

The postdoctoral position is focused on WP7 aiming to improve the effect of buildings in the high-resolution Numerical Weather Prediction models.

The objective of the task is to improve the effect of buildings in the high-resolution NWP models.

The study will focus on mesoscale model aspects, that are in the middle of the chain of models within the project, between Destination-Earth km(resolution models and building resolving models. The postdoctoral researcher will refine and evaluate the 100/200m neighbourhood scale forecasts and demonstrate the developments for the pilot cities. One also aims to provide input data for the building-scale models (operating <50 m grid spacing), including accurately representing the urban boundary layer.

The task will be performed in collaboration with KNMI and SMHI researchers, as well as internally with the forecast models research group of CNRM.

In more details:

-        more sophisticated building representation (including modelling turbulence inside the canopy) needs to be resolved to improve forecasts, especially for temperature. Analysis of simulations at building scale done with the MesoNH-IBM model, and potentially other models of the project, will be used to improve understanding of how to model building drag and heat influences at each atmospheric level.

-         The postodcotoral researcher will then propose improved parameterizations to be tested within the mesoscale model MesoNH  coupled with the surface model SURFEX comprising the urban canopy model TEB. The coupling is done with multilayers, allowing to better represent the turbulence and air characteristics within the urban canopy and the urban plume extension. Then the transferability to the AROME NWP model hectometric version will also be evaluated.

-        The evaluation of the models will be performed on the so-called action cities of Antwerp and Barcelona, and the so-called learning city of Paris. The work will start on the latter, on which the CNRM research team has a lot of experience about, and conducted an extensive campaign, called PANAME, in 2022 and 2023. Specific analysis will be done to assess the capability of the model to simulate effects of interest for adaptation, such as the cooling by urban vegetation and thermal comfort improvement. On the Paris case, the improvements will be able to be compared to the benchmark of hectometric atmospheric models having run daily simulations during the Olympics and Paralympics (Paris 2024 RDP project).

-        The postdoctoral researcher will also interact with other partners of the project within WP7, and interact with WP6 (large-scale models) and WP9 (building-resolving models)

Additional Information:

This position is open to people with disabilities.

Office hours.

Fixed-term contract of 19 to 24 months, depending on experience.

Remote work available: 2 days per week.

A Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences, computational fluid dynamics, or a related field is preferred, along with proven experience in a similar role.

You have experience in urban climate and a very good understanding of the processes involved.

You are proficient in modeling exchange processes between the city and the atmosphere, as well as urban meteorology.

You have extensive knowledge of validating meteorological models using experimental data.

You are familiar with the SURFEX/TEB, MesoNH, MesoNH-IBM, and/or AROME models.

You have experience studying the cities of Paris, Barcelona, or Antwerp.

You have very strong knowledge of Python and Fortran90.

You are able to work effectively in a team and within a project

You are capable of disseminating your work through the publication of scientific articles

Application deadline: 31/08/2026

Email addresses for further information: Valery.masson@meteo.fr and tim.nagel@meteo.fr