Position details

Software research engineer position - Development of OASIS, a numerical code coupler for high-performance computing in climate modelling
Job offer & Post-Doc › Climate Modelling And Global Change - Software development

Required Education / Niveau requis

Master or Ph.D

From / Date de début

as soon as possible

Duration / Durée

18 months

Context / Contexte

Numerical models used since the end of the sixties for climate modelling are powerful multi-physics codes reproducing the interactions between the different components of the Earth climate system, e.g. the atmosphere, the ocean, the sea ice, the surface, etc. Since 1991, the « Climate Modelling and Global Change » group at CERFACS has been playing a key role in the climate modelling community with the development of OASIS, a software ensuring the coupling of these components, i.e. synchronized exchanges and transformation of information at their interface. Today, OASIS is used worldwide by more than 30 climate modelling groups in Europe, USA, Canada, China and Australia.

The long term maintenance and development of OASIS is ensured by CERFACS and CNRS who each provides one full-time employee for these tasks. In the framework of the IS-ENES project (« Infrastructure for ENES», see https://is.enes.org/), the European Commission provides an additional funding of about 8 person-years over the 2009-2013 period, distributed between CERFACS and the Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum GmbH (DKRZ) in Hamburg. The main objective within IS-ENES is to finalise the development of OASIS4, the most recent fully parallel version of the software.

Description / Description

The research engineer hired in the framework of this contract will lead certain aspects in the development of the OASIS4 coupler. His/her main tasks will be to:

fully validate the global parallel interpolation algorithms for the numerical grids used in climate modelling;
improve the conservative remapping already implemented in OASIS;
measure and improve the overall efficiency of the coupler;
set-up and validate high-resolution coupled models based on OASIS4 (e.g. a coupling between a T359 atmospheric model with 8 million points and an ocean model with a resolution of 1/12 of a degree with 16 million points).

The engineer will be hired on a 18-month non-permanent position and will join the current development team (2 engineers at CERFACS and one engineer at DKRZ); an aptitude to work and interact within a team of developers is therefore essential. The position requires mastering the Linux operating system, the Fortran 90 programming language and the Message Passing Interface specification. Confirmed skills in high performance scientific computing and in software development are highly recommended. Notions in climate modelling would be an asset.

The position is currently open and must be fulfilled before December 2010; the applicants are invited to send their CV, letter of motivation, and two reference contacts as soon as possible.

Contacts / Contacts

Name: Valcke Sophie
Phone: 05.61.19.30.76
Fax: 05.61.19.30.00
Email: valcke[at]cerfacs.fr

Salary / Rémunération

To negociate based on experience