Remote Sensing Scientist – Atmosphere Products

VN 24 / 51 Remote Sensing Scientist Atmosphere Products

The Remote Sensing and Products (RSP) Division is tasked with providing the scientific expertise required to develop, implement, validate, maintain and evolve the operational observational products for all EUMETSAT satellites and agreed third party missions, as well as establishing the user requirements for future EUMETSAT and Copernicus satellite programmes.

The Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission is a European satellite designed for the monitoring of the Earth's oceans, lands, ice, and atmosphere.

EUMETSAT operates these satellites on behalf of the European Commission, in close cooperation with ESA. EUMETSAT is also responsible for processing and distributing the marine data and near-real-time (NRT) atmosphere products, including two operational NRT aerosols and fires products.

New products such as cloud mask, cloud properties, dust, aerosol layer height, or water vapour content, are also being developed and will be implemented operationally in the next years.

Within the Clouds and Aerosols Competence Area (ClA-CA) of the Remote Sensing and Products Division (RSP), the Remote Sensing Scientist Atmosphere Products will work on the retrieval of atmospheric parameters from Sentinel-3 optical observations.

Duties

• Acquire and maintain an in depth understanding of the atmosphere products, as well as their performances, derived from the Sentinel-3 instruments;
• Support the definition, development, prototyping and validation of new or enhanced atmosphere NRT operational products from OLCI and SLSTR instruments, including in a synergistic approach;
• Provide scientific and technical expertise on the processing and analysis of Sentinel-3 atmosphere product and inversion of atmospheric physical parameters in support of environment monitoring, forecasting applications, and climate applications;
• Contribute to the validation and monitoring of Sentinel-3 atmosphere products in collaboration with mission partners as well as the scientific and user communities;
• Based on interactions with the scientific and user communities, contribute to the advancement of the understanding of innovative measurements of atmosphere products and to the preparation and development of their NRT applications;
• Support interactions with mission and international partners such as Copernicus Atmospheric, Climate, and Emergency services, as well as the atmospheric sciences communities.

LOCATION

Darmstadt, Germany

QUALIFICATIONS

Advanced university degree or equivalent in remote sensing of atmospheric composition parameters, meteorology, physics or another relevant discipline.

LANGUAGES

Candidates must be able to work effectively in English and have some knowledge of French.

DEADLINE

6 January

Duties

• Acquire and maintain an in depth understanding of the atmosphere products, as well as their performances, derived from the Sentinel-3 instruments;
• Support the definition, development, prototyping and validation of new or enhanced atmosphere NRT operational products from OLCI and SLSTR instruments, including in a synergistic approach;
• Provide scientific and technical expertise on the processing and analysis of Sentinel-3 atmosphere product and inversion of atmospheric physical parameters in support of environment monitoring, forecasting applications, and climate applications;
• Contribute to the validation and monitoring of Sentinel-3 atmosphere products in collaboration with mission partners as well as the scientific and user communities;
• Based on interactions with the scientific and user communities, contribute to the advancement of the understanding of innovative measurements of atmosphere products and to the preparation and development of their NRT applications;
• Support interactions with mission and international partners such as Copernicus Atmospheric, Climate, and Emergency services, as well as the atmospheric sciences communities.

Skills and Experience

• Knowledge of the most relevant optical imagery missions for the observation of aerosol, cloud, water vapour and fire, their products, applications and user communities;
• Demonstrated expertise in the physics of optical remote sensing of atmosphere products from the EUMETSAT and / or Copernicus portolio, and their validation;
• Understanding of the functioning, operation, and data processing of products derived from optical imagery missions. Experience with NRT processing or Level-2 retrieval would be an asset;
• Demonstrable experience in developing scientific applications software in Python and C in UNIX environment. Experience with operational data processing software would be an advantage;
• Demonstrable experience with scientific development projects and working with user communities and researchers;
• Strengths in analysis, synthesis and presentation;
• Good interpersonal skills with a proven ability to apply these to the interactions within a team and between teams.

Employment Conditions

The initial contract will be of 4 years’ duration, with subsequent 5 year contracts being awarded thereafter, subject to individual performance and organisation requirements.

There is no limit to the amount of follow-up contracts a staff member can receive up to the EUMETSAT retirement age of 63 and there are certainly opportunities to establish a long career perspective at EUMETSAT.

This post is graded A2 / A4 on the EUMETSAT salary scales. The minimum basic salary for this post is EURO per month (net of internal tax but excluding pension contribution and insurances) which may be negotiable on the basis of skills and experience.

The salary scale provides for increments on the anniversary of taking up employment, and scales are reviewed by the EUMETSAT Council with effect from 1 January each year.

In addition to basic salary, EUMETSAT offers attractive benefits. Further information, including salary details, is available on the EUMETSAT web site.

EUMETSAT is committed to providing an equal opportunities work environment for men and women.

Please note that only nationals of EUMETSAT Member States may apply. The EUMETSAT Convention requires that Staff shall be recruited on the basis of their qualifications, account being taken of the international character of EUMETSAT.