Ruđer Bošković Institute

The Institute is the largest Croatian scientific research center of a multidisciplinary character.

The Mission of the Institute is excellent scientific research in the natural, biomedical and engineering sciences, with contributions to higher education and cooperation with the business sector based on outstanding scientific research.

The vision of the Institute is to be a recognized top European center of scientific excellence.

Homepage: https://www.irb.hr/

Institution: Ruđer Bošković Institute, Croatia
Project: ERC-funded IGNITE project dealing with ant thermal adaptation under climate extremes

Supervisor: Dr. Cléa Denamiel (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Clea-Denamiel)
Start Date: early 2026
Duration: 2 years, renewable up to 4 years depending on performance

Are you passionate about climate modeling, eager to push the boundaries of regional atmospheric simulations, and excited to contribute to real-world ecological impact?

We invite applications for a postdoctoral researcher to join the cutting-edge ERC-funded IGNITE project lead by Dr. Jelena Bujan (https://erc.europa.eu/event-speaker/jelena-bujan) and focused on understanding how thermal extremes affect ant survival and ecosystem function. The interdisciplinary project integrates behavioral ecology, ecophysiology, and climate modeling to explore the resilience of Croatian island ecosystems under increasing climate stress.

The successful candidate will work on the development and implementation of a novel high-resolution climate modeling framework—IslaClim—which builds upon the Adriatic Sea and Coast (AdriSC) modeling suite (https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/14/3995/2021/). This work will directly contribute to identifying climate stress patterns at fine scales and inform both experimental and applied ecological research.

Key Responsibilities

• Implement simulations at 500 m resolution using the WRF or ICON models.
• Couple the WRF or ICON models with a Land Model (e.g., CLM 5.0) to improve surface temperature and humidity representation.
• Integrate satellite-derived vegetation data into the coupled land-atmosphere model to reflect spatial variation in land cover and its impact on local microclimate.
• Simulate both present-day and future climate scenarios using the pseudo-global warming (PGW) approach.
• Assist in analyzing model outputs to quantify spatial and temporal variability of temperature extremes, particularly heatwave frequency and intensity across Croatian islands.
• Collaborate with ecologists to link climate model outputs to biological experiments and ecosystem modeling.

Requirements

• PhD in atmospheric sciences, climate science, oceanography, or a related discipline.
• Strong experience with WRF, ICON and/or regional climate modeling.
• Familiarity with land surface modeling and coupling strategies.
• Solid programming skills in Matlab/Python, Fortran/C, bash, and familiarity with HPC environments.
• Experience working with satellite or remote sensing data (e.g. vegetation indices) is an asset.
• Demonstrated ability to work in interdisciplinary teams and communicate with non-climate experts.
• Fluency in English (spoken and written).

We Offer

• An opportunity to contribute to a high-impact, interdisciplinary ERC project.
• Mentorship from a leading expert in regional climate modeling.
• Collaboration with ecologists and climate scientists.
• Access to high-performance computing facilities and regional datasets.
• Flexible work environment based at the Ruđer Bošković Institute in Split

Please apply at: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/388140

The application form is the email that also should be CC to cdenami@irb.hr