Climate and Marine Modelling Assistant

About the role

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is hiring a Climate and Marine Modelling Assistant in Nairobi (Westlands). The role covers processing and analysing climate, weather, ocean and wave model outputs, preparing forecast products, supporting early warning and contributing to climate outlooks, marine forecasts and Blue Economy information services.

Key responsibilities

• Process and analyse climate, weather, ocean and wave model outputs, and help prepare forecast products based on rainfall, temperature, wind, sea surface temperature, waves, currents and sea level.
• Download, quality-control and organise climate and marine datasets, work with NetCDF, GRIB and GeoTIFF, and integrate model outputs with satellite and in-situ observations.
• Develop and maintain basic scripts and workflows, using Python, R, MATLAB or equivalent tools, and automate routine modelling and forecast-product generation.
• Compare model outputs with observations, prepare performance statistics and make maps, graphs and time-series for technical and operational use.
• Support monitoring of climate and marine conditions for early warning and provide technical inputs to climate outlooks, marine forecasts and Blue Economy services.
• Support research on climate variability, climate change and marine hazards, and contribute to reports, presentations and publications.

Required profile

• Master's degree in meteorology, atmospheric sciences, oceanography, marine science, climate science, environmental science, physics, mathematics, geospatial science, computer science or a related field; a relevant postgraduate qualification is an added advantage.
• At least four years of professional experience in climate, meteorological, marine, environmental or geospatial data analysis.
• Mandatory experience in at least one of: climate or marine modelling, numerical weather prediction, ocean or wave modelling, climate data analysis, earth observation and remote sensing, GIS and geospatial analysis, climate forecasting and early warning, scientific programming and data science, or high-performance or cloud computing.
• Experience handling large scientific or environmental datasets and basic statistical analysis.
• Excellent written and spoken English; working knowledge of French is an added advantage.

Required skills

• Knowledge of climate and/or marine science.
• Familiarity with Python, R, MATLAB or similar tools, and with NetCDF, GRIB, GeoTIFF or similar formats.
• Basic GIS and data-visualization skills.
• Advantage: familiarity with WRF, SWAN, WAVEWATCH III, ROMS, ECMWF products or reanalysis datasets.
• Analytical, quantitative and problem-solving skills, attention to data quality, teamwork and deadline management.