EUMETSAT uses data from its growing fleet of earth observation satellites and from other agencies to support weather prediction in its Member States and worldwide. EUMETSAT also strongly supports climate monitoring by providing a wide range of satellite data, including rescued, recalibrated and reprocessed long time series of satellite observations. These time-series also increasingly serve as training datasets for machine learning in various application areas. As part of this, users are increasingly supported using machine learning methods, e.g. for the development of a characterisation of weather and climate-related features in the Earth system.

The post holder will lead the Climate and Data Analytics Team, which is part of the User Support and Climate Services (USC) Division of the Operations Department. She/he will set the strategic direction for the climate application area support of the organisation. As such she/he will be in charge of a diverse portfolio of activities, such as user engagement for climate data application and deriving requirements for EUMETSAT activities in support of climate service providers, developing and analysing climate data and information products and services, as well as requirements for and operation of large infrastructures, including cloud infrastructures for the production of dataset and services. The team consists of staff with a wide range of expertise, ranging from applications of Earth observation data and machine learning in climate science and services to computer science for the efficient production of climate data. The team utilises the latest technologies that can be applied to cloud/mass data processing systems to generate and exploit the datasets and is supported by remote sensing scientists and engineers from across the organization.

She/he is also involved in the European coordination of climate data with national climate information providers, ECMWF, the European Commission and ESA, participates in the coordination of international climate-related activities within the Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites (CGMS) and the Committee of Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) and supports coordination between space agencies and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). Joining EUMETSAT in this role offers a unique opportunity to take a leadership role in a highly motivating environment.

Duties

• Lead and manage the USC climate and data analytics team;
• Advise the EUMETSAT Management Board on all aspects of EUMETSAT’s support to Climate Services and related activities;
• Coordinate EUMETSAT’s climate monitoring activities within the organisation inclusive of guidance to user engagement, planning and delivery of climate data, and reporting to delegate bodies;
• Coordinate EUMETSAT’s contributions on climate to the relevant Copernicus Services including coordination and update of a respective multi-annual production plan;
• Lead the planning and usage of data analytics methods such as machine learning related to climate and related application areas;

• Lead the definition of evolving user requirements for EUMETSAT’s reprocessing infrastructure, validate delivered functions, and operate the infrastructure as a Multi-Mission Element;
• Lead the definition of user requirements for EUMETSAT’s evolving Hosted Processing Services and associated projects such as the European Weather Cloud, validate delivered functions, contribute to the operations of the Service and reporting to delegate bodies;
• Lead the establishment and maintenance of cooperation with external partners and represent EUMETSAT at international fora and liaise with the scientific and operational community as required to support climate monitoring and related machine learning activities;
• Routinely assess opportunities for engaging in third-party funded R&D activities relevant to the function (e.g. Horizon Europe), and lead the scientific engagement in selected bids, with support of administrative units.

Skills and Experience

• Excellent understanding of the use of satellite data for climate applications;
• Demonstrable experience with increasing responsibility in leading science or operation teams, in climate research or climate services using observations and model outputs (e.g. reanalysis), and (in the analysis of satellite climate data inclusive of quality analysis);
• Sound background in remote sensing physics, instrument calibration, quantitative uncertainty analysis, or machine learning methods;
• Strong experience in working in international projects, project management and coordination; experience in international coordination mechanisms is considered an advantage;
• Good understanding of working in operational environments; understanding of infrastructure requirements for large scale processing of satellite data is considered an advantage;
• Strong interpersonal and team working skills as well as strength in analysis, synthesis and presentation.