Postdoc in Arctic coastal erosion

Functieomschrijving

Permafrost coasts, covering about 65% of the total Arctic Ocean shorelines, are in the hotspot of change. They experience both warming and increased physical forcing from waves, storms, and tides due to diminishing sea ice. The massive organic carbon pool stored in permafrost is therefore increasingly exposed to thaw and mobilization in aquatic systems. Here it can be degraded into greenhouse gases, strengthening climate warming, or buried into sediments, attenuating climate warming.

To what extent this flux of permafrost carbon will affect future climate is poorly understood but we know that it depends on the degree of degradation after thaw and during transport across continental shelves.

This project, part of a prestigious VIDI grant by Associate Prof Jorien Vonk, will help to determine the fate of permafrost carbon in the marine system which will enable us to improve quantification of the impact of permafrost thaw on climate. You will join Vonk's Arctic Biogeochemistry research group at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam along with a parallel hired PhD student on the VIDI project. The other team members work on related topics funded through an ERC starting grant THAWSOME, the large EU consortium Nunataryuk, as well as the Dutch excellence program Netherlands Earth System Science Center (NESSC).

Your duties

• Collect samples at eroding coastal sites in the Canadian and Alaskan Beaufort Sea, and join/help coordinate a ship-based expedition in this region
• Perform hydrodynamic fractionation of collected samples according to their density, settling velocity and size, in collaboration with the VIDI PhD student
• Set-up and test a settling velocity apparatus in the laboratory
• Perform molecular and biogeochemical analyses on the sample fractions
• Present results at conferences and in peer-reviewed publications
• Play a role in supervising MSc and BSc students and/or our Hydrology and Earth Science teaching programmes
• Contribute with your own unique character to our dynamic group

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