Working at BAS is rewarding. Our skilled science, operational and support staff based in Cambridge, Antarctica and the Arctic, work together to deliver research that uses the Polar Regions to advance our understanding of Earth as a sustainable planet. Through our extensive logistic capability and know how BAS facilitates access for the British and international science community to the UK polar research operation. Numerous national and international collaborations, combined with an excellent infrastructure help sustain a world leading position for the UK in Antarctic affairs. British Antarctic Survey is a component of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
As a valued member of our team, you’ll be eligible for the following benefits:
- 30 days annual leave plus bank holidays and 2.5 privilege days
- Excellent civil service pension (with 26% or more employer contribution, depending on your band)
- 24 hours/365 days access to employee assistance program (EAP – including support with physical, mental, social, health and financial issues)
- Flexible and family friendly working opportunities
- Cycle to work scheme
- Access to discounted shopping on a range of retail, leisure and lifestyle categories and much more.
You’ll be joining our team of ice core scientists at BAS and University of Cambridge working with collaborators all around the world on two major international ice core projects. The Beyond EPICA-Oldest Ice Core project (BE-OIC) is a collaborative European effort to obtain a continuous ice core record of climate and carbon cycle changes across the mid-Pleistocene. The project recently completed the drilling of a new deep Antarctic ice core that holds ice from up to 1.2 million years before present. Our role in the project is to contribute our expertise in high-resolution, continuous ice core gas analysis.
Fate, Emissions and Transport of CH4 (FETCH4) is a global project supported by Schmidt Futures that aims to improve our understanding of methane levels in the atmosphere in the past, present and future. Our role is to help collect and analyse a new Greenland ice core to produce a detailed record over last ~150 years.
In collaboration with our European partners, you’ll help us to deliver unprecedented records of greenhouse gases (GHG) from a continuous ice core that is older than any yet analysed. Preliminary results suggest the BE-OIC core captures the Mid-Pleistocene Transition – an enigmatic change in the Earth’s climate whose origins are not understood. You will have the chance to collect some of the first greenhouse data on the changes in CH4, N2O and CO on this ice. Within the FETCH4 project, you will be the key scientist producing CH4 and CO concentration data from a new Greenland ice core and get to work alongside other scientists collecting isotopic data, which could include work in the field.
Within the role, there will be an opportunity to join a network of international ice core scientists and climate modelers through the BE-OIC and FETCH4 projects. You will be able to enhance your set of lab skills using the cutting edge of ice core gas analysis – optimized to maximize the quality and resolution of ice core GHG record. Outside of the lab you will be trained on suite of efficient carbon cycle and atmospheric box models we have developed to interpret ice core data.
Current projects the team are working on include:
- Ice sheet elevation reconstructions using total air content and other proxies (e.g. Griemen et al., 2024, Abrupt Holocene ice loss due to thinning and ungrounding in the Weddell Sea Embayment.
- Recent carbon cycle changes from high-accumulation Antarctic site. (e.g. Strawson et al., 2024, Historical Southern Hemisphere biomass burning variability inferred from ice core carbon monoxide records.
Some of your main responsibilities will include:
- Analyzing the oldest ice samples from the Beyond EPICA project in conjunction with project partners to produce new records of atmospheric gases prior to 700,000 years ago, spanning the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. This is likely to take place in either Copenhagen or Grenoble.
- Test and maintain a suite of Optical feedback – Cavity Enhances Absorption Spectrometer (OF-CEAS) instruments capable of analyzing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and carbon monoxide (CO).
- Potentially participate in one ice core drilling field season in southeast Greenland.
- Utilize the Cambridge Model of Emissions, Reactions and Atmospheric transport in a BOX (Camera-Box) model to study past variations in CH4 and CO.
For the role of PDRA Ice Core Gas Analysis, we are looking for somebody who has:
- Ph.D. in Earth Science, Physics, Chemistry, other-related Natural Science field
- Experience working in a (geo-) chemistry analytical laboratory
- Experience working independently on a research project
Location: BAS Cambridge
Salary: £41,344 to £45,479 per annum
Application Deadline: March 19, 2025
