PhD position in Physical Oceanography

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Position

PhD position in Physical Oceanography

Employer

University of Reading

Homepage:

Location

Reading, United Kingdom

Sector

Academic

Relevant divisions

Atmospheric Sciences (AS)

Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences (NP)

Ocean Sciences (OS)

Type

Contract

Level

Student / Graduate / Internship

Salary

£22,780/year, with an annual increase in line with UKRI.

Preferred Education
Master

Application deadline

9 November 2025

Posted

28 October 2025

Job Description
Oceanic changes over continental shelves have direct impacts on human activities (
e.g.
, fisheries, storm surges, ice shelf melting, etc). There is an increasing need to make accurate predictions of ocean circulation over these areas. Ocean properties (
e.g.
, heat, nutrients, sea level) are heavily influenced by transports due to mesoscale eddies (ocean currents that form closed circulations). The size of these eddies varies with a length scale called the deformation radius, ranging from km in the deep ocean to just a few kilometres in the shallower continental shelves.

The current generation of climate models cannot afford the computational cost (
e.g.
, finer computational grids) to simulate eddies on continental shelves. Therefore, eddy effects need to be included indirectly via parametrisations. While such parametrisations have been developed for the deep ocean, there is now a new territory: Eddy parametrisations appropriate for climate models that resolve eddies to varying degrees in different regions of the ocean.

In this project, you will first develop the theoretical framework to describe eddy dynamics over continental margins and at the interface between coastal and deep-ocean regimes, laying down the basis to develop novel/smarter/more flexible parametrisations. This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to the understanding of eddy dynamics and to help advance our capabilities to simulate future climate scenarios. We seek a motivated student with a strong mathematical and computational background. The MFC CDT offers advanced training in quantitative and professional skills in a cohort setting.

About the PhD programme - Mathematics for our Future Climate Centre for Doctoral Training (MFC CDT):
The MFC CDT programme provides comprehensive training in the theory of climate science, physical sciences, scientific computing, statistics and data analysis to address pressing problems and challenges posed by climate change. The CDT programme also affords extensive opportunities for personal and professional development training, and for students to expand their multi-disciplinary outlook through interactions with a wide network of academic, research and industrial/policy partners. Training specific to this project will include:

• Mechanistic understanding of ocean dynamics and development of parametrisations for unresolved processes;
• Numerical analysis of ocean model output;
• Running idealised ocean simulations to test parametrisations;
• Programming in Python, Matlab, Julia, or other high-level programming languages;
• Opportunities for research visits to the National Oceanography Centre;
• Development of scientific communication skills by attending national and international conferences.

How to apply

Please apply using the PhD and professional doctorate online application portal.

Candidates must hold a master's in mathematics (this includes an MMath), or a related field with a strong mathematics content by the start of the PhD programme. We also encourage applications from individuals who hold a bachelor's degree followed by substantial, highly relevant work or research experience.

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