PhD position on 'AI-based weather prediction and climate change attribution of extreme events' at IGEO-CSIC

About this position

The Physics of Climate and Climate Change group at the Instituto de Geociencias (IGEO, CSIC–UCM) in Madrid invites applications for a:

PhD researcher, 100%

to join the project ADAPT-X – AI-Driven AnticiPated aTtribution of eXtreme events (ref. 2025-T1/ECO-36122 ), funded by the Comunidad de Madrid through the César Nombela Talent Attraction Programme.

The position is offered for 4 years , starting in Spring 2027 or as soon as possible thereafter.

ADAPT-X investigates how AI-based weather prediction models can be used to improve the prediction and climate-change attribution of extreme events such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts and severe storms. Recent AI weather models can produce skilful global forecasts at a fraction of the computational cost of conventional numerical weather prediction systems, opening new possibilities for large forecast ensembles and event-based climate attribution.

The PhD researcher will evaluate the predictive skill of AI weather models for extreme events and examine how well they represent the atmospheric processes associated with them. The work will include factual and counterfactual forecast experiments, in which AI models are initialized under present-day and pre-industrial climate conditions to quantify the influence of anthropogenic climate change on individual events.

The candidate will also investigate how the imposed climate-change signal evolves during the forecast, assess the physical consistency of the resulting response using dynamical and thermodynamic diagnostics, and compare AI-based attribution with physics-based numerical weather prediction simulations, including NWP experiments for selected events.

The successful candidate will join the Physics of Climate and Climate Change group at IGEO-CSIC and the STREAM research group at UCM , with access to GPU and high-performance computing resources and opportunities for international collaboration and research stays.

Salary: approximately €1,655 net per month , depending on personal tax circumstances, with full Spanish Social Security coverage and standard employee benefits.

Requirements: Applicants should hold, or be close to completing, a Master’s degree giving access to a PhD programme in atmospheric sciences, meteorology, climate science, physics, applied mathematics, environmental sciences, computer science, data science, or a related quantitative field. Good scientific programming skills, particularly in Python, are required. Experience with atmospheric dynamics, numerical modelling, machine learning, or large meteorological datasets would be advantageous.

Applications and deadline: Please send a single PDF including (i) CV, (ii) a one-page motivation letter, (iii) academic transcripts, and (iv) contact details of two potential referees to bernatji@ucm.es , with the subject “ADAPT-X PhD application – [Candidate name]” , by 31 December 2026 . Applications may be considered after this date until the position is filled.

IGEO-CSIC is committed to a policy of providing equal employment opportunities for both men and women alike, and therefore encourages particularly women to apply for the two positions offered.

For further information, please contact me at bernatji@ucm.es .