Postdoctoral Researcher – climate impacts on food prices (R2) per al Barcelona Supercomputing Center

The impacts of climate change on food systems are intensifying worldwide, with recent weather extremes driving spikes in the price of staple foods in many countries. Food prices have recently been identified as the second most frequent way in which people are directly experiencing the impacts of climate change, and these impacts can have both political and health related consequences. Limiting these impacts requires detailed understanding of the agricultural impacts from weather extremes and climate change, as well as accurate projections of their future changes and risks.

The Climate Variability and Change (CVC) group led by ICREA Research Professor Markus Donat at the BSC-CNS is seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral researcher to analyse climate risks to food security in Europe, specifically focusing on risks to food inflation and their implications for health in the UK. The selected candidate will work within the UKRI funded project “Adapting to climate-induced food price shocks in the UK”. The project will deliver scenarios of climate change impacts on UK food prices stemming from direct impacts in the UK as well as indirect impacts occurring abroad which are then transmitted via trade. Project partners from the academic and public sector will translate these impacts on food prices into consequences for the health of citizens in the UK and will tailor the communication of research output for UK policymakers and the wider public. Together with researchers at the BSC, the successful candidate will play a crucial role by building statistical models for the impact of climate on food prices in the UK and Europe and by combining these models with future climate projections and state-of-the-art decadal prediction systems to assess future risks. The candidate will work closely with post-doctoral researcher Maximilian Kotz to build on prior expertise in this area at BSC.

The CVC group conducts state-of-the-art research on climate change focussing on understanding drivers and obtaining accurate predictions of changing conditions and weather extremes. The group works closely with other related groups at BSC which focus on delivering sector-relevant climate information to the public sector to inform adaptation (the Climate Services group) and assess the health consequences of climate change (the Global Health Resilience group).

Key Duties

• Build statistical models for the impact of climate conditions on food prices in the UK and Europe
• Harness sectoral trade data to identify food dependencies in the UK and vulnerabilities abroad
• Explore sensitivities of food prices to a range of climate indicators relevant to agricultural production in the UK and relevant trade partners
• Incorporate data on future climate change from large scale modelling efforts (e.g. CMIP) and more other information of future climate (decadal predictions, regional climate modelling)
• Interact with health scientist project partners in the UK to tailor research output for evaluating health consequences
• Contribute to the framing of policy-relevant reports on the consequences of climate change for UK food prices, health and the wider food system
• Interact with scientists in the group, department, center and other institutions in Barcelona to enhance synergies
• Engage with stakeholders and policy makers locally and in the UK
• Support administrative duties of the group, including arranging meetings, taking minutes, writing deliverable and mission reports, maintaining Wiki/webpages, etc.

Data de tancament: Dijous, 20 Febrer, 2025

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