RMIT University in collaboration with The Australia Bureau of Meteorology, the University of New South Wales and The Joint Centre of Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA) of NASA, NOAA and DoD, of the United States of America are recently awarded both an ARC project and a DIISR ISL competitive grant in the area of GPS meteorology and satellite atmosphere remote sensing. The titles of the ARC (LP0883288) and the DIISR ISL projects are “Satellite-Based Radio Occultation for Atmospheric Sounding, Weather Forecasting and Climate Monitoring in the Australian Region” and "Assimilation of GPS Radio Occultation Data with Numerical Weather Prediction System for Climate Monitoring" respectively. These projects will investigate innovative approaches for global profiling of temperature, pressure and humidity from Earth's surface to the stratosphere by employing a satellite-based radio occultation technique and their data assimilation. New space-borne and ground-based satellite positioning and remote sensing techniques, atmospheric sounding technologies and their fusion to overcome the constraints of sparse atmospheric sensor distribution for weather forecasting and climate monitoring will be studied. This technique is promising as it is able to map the detailed refractivity profile and the structure of the atmosphere inexpensively with a fine vertical resolution and high spatio-temporal sampling density.

This project is dedicated to developing superior national capabilities in anticipating, analysing and investigating critical meteorological threats to Australia. The outcome of this project will be a new methodology for testing and improving regional numerical weather prediction and global climate models in the Australian Region, which will considerably advance our knowledge of atmospheric physics and climate change processes.

The appointee is expected to contribute to the research activities of the consortiums in the specialist areas of GPS and geodesy, space-borne and ground-based GPS meteorology, precise satellite positioning, precise orbit determination, atmosphere/astronomy and atmospheric modeling in particular. The successful applicant is expected to lead, undertake and participate in day-to-day operation of the research work, including management of the research project, documentation, software and algorithm developments, and carrying out field experiments. Some inter-state and overseas travel opportunities are involved with this appointment.

The remuneration package: $60,000 p.a. - $100,000 p.a. (including 17% superannuation)

                                      (exchange rate as of August 2008, Aus$1.0 = ~US$0.9 = ~0.6Euro)

Duration: 2-3 years.

Date of Commencement: 1 December 2008 or as soon as thereafter

Contact: A/Prof Kefei Zhang, kefei.zhang@rmit.edu.au, +61 3 99253272.

Recent research activities of SPAN Centre can be found here.