Description of 35 cycle scholaships (2019-2022)

22 scholarships are offered in the 35-th cycle, here is a short description of the research themes for each of them.

Scholarship nb 1: Physics of the Solid Earth

The topic covers all aspects of solid earth geophysics, such as seismology, physics of volcanism, geodesy, quantitative geodynamics, tsunami

The scholarship is funded by the University of Bologna through the Department of Physics and Astronomy (http://www.physics-astronomy.unibo.it/en).

Scholarship nb. 2: Dynamics of flow circulation during drought conditions using numerical and experimental approaches

This topic covers atmospheric dynamics, complex topography, air-sea interaction, sea-land transition using high resolution numerical modelling. Of particular interest is the study of large atmospheric systems inducing extreme weather (droughts) over the Italian territory. The principal objective in this topic is to create realistic estimates of high-resolution (1 km by 1 km horizontal grids) atmospheric boundary layer structure to infer the characteristics of local circulation.  Within this topic emphasis will be on thermally driven flow dynamics and interaction with the built coastal environment. Both daily and nocturnal conditions are to be investigated focusing on both convective and stable conditions. Complementary to the work is the realization of field experimental campaigns to study surface processes and develop new parametrizations to better capture the variability of atmospheric conditions in complex orography.

The successful candidate will be working with a highly motivated research team currently involved in several international research programs.

The scolarship is funded by the University of Bologna, through the Department of Physics and Astronomy, http://www.physics-astronomy.unibo.it/en.

Scholarship nb. 3: Oceanography: interdisciplinary modelling and climate processes

This topic covers ocean circulation dynamics, ice-ocean interactions, ocean climate variability and change and marine ecosystem dynamics using numerical modelling tools, real time and historical observations. The topic is also connected to ocean predictions and analysis and it is related to the evolution of the Copernicus Marine Environment Service data and models, see: http://marine.copernicus.eu/.

Ocean circulation dynamics topics: interaction between short time scale variability (tides, inertial waves, submesoscales, etc.) and the large scale ocean circulation structure, effects of internal tides on the stratification, energetics of the general circulation.

Ice-ocean interactions topic: numerical modelling of Greenland fjords dynamics, coupling between open ocean and fjord ice melting, down-scaling of climate change models to local fjords.

Marine ecosystem dynamics topic: numerical modelling of low oxygen areas in the ocean and under climate scenarios, changes in the coral system due to acidification.

Ocean predictions: seamless modelling of the ocean currents, coupling with wind waves and forecast skill studies

The scholarship is funded by University of Bologna, through the Department of Physics and Astronomy, http://www.physics-astronomy.unibo.it/en.

Scholarship nb. 4: Reconstructions of the climate over Italy by high resolution numerical model and observations

This research topic includes the numerical down-scaling of European coarser Reanalyses to assess the last 30-40 year climatology over Italy and the validation with meteorological observations. Emphasis is on extreme hydro-meteorological events, notably flooding and heavy precipitation events in different environments. The numerical model used is the COSMO model which will be tested with particular attention to the capability of representing Boundary Layer characteristics in critical situations. One of the desirable outcomes of this research is to guide the performance assessment of possible nature-based solutions to be tested against the effect of climate change. This research is partly connected to the H2020-OPERANDUM project (www.operandum-project.eu) focusing on delivering tools and methodologies for the validation of Nature-Based Solutions in order to enhance resilience in European rural and natural territories by reducing hydro-meteorological risks.

The student will work under the supervision of professors from the University of Bologna and the Regional Environmental Protection Agency of the Emilia-Romagna.
The fellowship is partly funded by the Regional Environmental Protection Agency of the Emilia-Romagna region and the University of Bologna, Department of Physics and Astronomy, http://www.physics-astronomy.unibo.it/en.

Scholarship nb. 5: Advanced coastal modeling and data assimilation

This research topic is concerned with the development and implementation of new data assimilation algorithms in coastal ocean models (data assimilation: optimal statistical melding of observations and numerical model outputs to obtain the best estimate of the state of the coastal currents, sea level, temperature, salinity, etc. for initialization of forecasts). The numerical models to be used are the new generation unstructured grid models capable of resolving the coastal geometry in details.

After the first year courses, the student will work at the CMCC-OceanLab facilities located in Lecce (http://oceanlab.cmcc.it/).

The fellowship is sponsored by the EuroMediterranean Center for Climate Change Foundation (CMCC,  https://www.cmcc.it/).

Scholarship nb. 6: Coupled atmosphere-ocean model forecasts in the Mediterranean area

The research topic considers the coupled ocean-atmosphere dynamics in the whole Mediterranean Sea area in order to improve the atmosphere-ocean forecasting time lead to several weeks and months (subseasonal to seasonal forecasting). The work will be carried out in collaboration with the Climate Prediction Division of the EuroMediterranean Center for Climate Change (CMCC) located in Bologna.

Coupled ocean-atmosphere numerical models are the future forecasting models from the global to the regional and local scales. This scholarship aims at developing the high, to very high resolution forecasting model for the whole Mediterranean Sea area. This project is within the framework of improved subseasonal to seasonal forecasting for the ocean and the atmosphere and it is connected  to the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service and the Copernicus Climate Service of the European Union (pls see https://www.copernicus.eu/en/services).

The fellowship is sponsored by the EuroMediterranean Center for Climate Change  Foundation (CMCC,  https://www.cmcc.it/).

Scholarship nb. 7: Climate Change and Societal Challenges: Policies, Communication and Risk Management

 This topic covers the connections between Climate Change and Social Change in their different dimensions: the narratives attached to Climate Change and their impact on social and political debates; the impact of Climate Change on individual and collective behavioral patterns; the institutions and policies devised to face the challenges of Climate Change.

The fellowship is supported by the University of Bologna through the Department of Political and Social Sciences

Scholarship nb. 8: Development of new flow microbiological biofuel cells using 3D technology powered by agro-industrial waste for electric mobility

The topic deals with specific treatment of agro-industrial wastes to feed a flow microbiological biofuel cell realized by 3D printing technology. Circular economy and renewable energy production are the main approach of this technological research. Knowledge on enzymatic treatment, microbiologic metabolism, bioelectronics and bioelectrochemistry as well as on computer-aided design for 3D models are necessary in order to reach the aim of this research.

The fellowship is supported by the University of Bologna through the "Toso Montanari" Department of Industrial Chemistry (http://www.industrial-chemistry.unibo.it/en).

Scholarship nb. 9: Regional sea level assessment and impacts for the coastal region of Emilia- Romagna

The Emilia Romagna coastal tracts have a primary socio-economic and naturalistic value; the human pressure here plays a fundamental role in enhancing the effects of climate change. This project aims at: 1) assessing the relative sea-level trend at the regional scale from different records and approaches; 2) comparing local scenarios of sea-level rise and potential flooding; 3) estimating the related impacts, considering the peculiar land use of the area and in view of possibile mitigation actions. 

The work will be carried out in collaboration with INGV located in Bologna.

The fellowship is financed by the University of Bologna through the Department of Biological, Geological and environmental sciences.

Scholarship nb. 10: Climate change impact on Infrastructures and adaptation technologies

Climate change affects infrastructures for water resources management, urban and agricultural drainage, irrigation, and transportation. Adaptation measures are required to cope with the challenges induced by possibly enhanced climate variability. The research activity is aimed to: (a) assess the potential of innovative simulation techniques for deriving technically suitable estimates of future climate statistics; (b) devise innovative technical procedures for engineering design in the presence of non-stationarity; (c) propose original techniques for climate adaptation in the presence of quasi-stationary and non-stationary climate.

The fellowship is supported by the University of Bologna through the Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering (http://www.dicam.unibo.it/en).

Scholarship nb. 11:  Low carbon systems for climate change mitigation and adaptation

The research topic is aimed at providing a conceptual model for the transition from fossil to renewable energy industrial infrastructures in order to mitigate the impact of CO₂ emissions and other atmospheric pollutant emissions. Furthermore, in a circular economic strategy, a wider meaning of waste should be considered, and a new methodology should be developed regarding indexes of ‘Equivalent toxicity of plants’. Those indexes require a recognition and classification in the industrial plant engineering.

The project works on the determination of toxicological equivalence among different types of substances released by different industrial processes with the strategy of preventing climate change and reduce health risks.

The fellowship is financed by the University of Bologna and the Department of Industrial Engineering (http://www.industrial-engineering.unibo.it/en).

Scholarship nb. 12: Radiative transfer methods to investigate the variability of atmospheric climate forcing agents

The  PhD research activity  will take place, after the first year courses, at the premises of the ISAC-CNR institute located in Bologna and will focus on the following research area:

Satellite measurements of the infrared emissions of the atmosphere enables the measurement and the monitoring of the atmospheric composition on a global scale. The  topic of this research will be the development of tools to exploit these measurements to understand the processes driving changes in the Earth climate and to study planetary atmospheres.

The fellowship is sponsored by the National Research Council - Institute of Atmospheric and Climate Science (ISAC - CNR) based in Bologna.

Scholarship nb. 13: Communication strategies in the field of Global Change and its impacts

This topic addresses the need for scientifically correct communication in a field that has recently achieved great relevance for society at large.

The information flow must be tuned to the specific community to which it is addressed, from increasing awareness for the general public, to guidelines for citizen scientists, and long term scenarios for political decision makers. This must be grounded in a curriculum in  communication  science with  some experience on environment issues or at least on scientific topics. 
After the first year courses, the student will work at the CNR-ISAC ofBologna, in contact with the researchers performing activities related to global change (field observations, laboratory experiments, modeling and climate analysis), and in Rome, in close collaboration with the CNR communication manager.The activities of the Institute take place in several locations (Bologna, Roma, Lecce, etc see website www.isac.cnr.it) which the candidate must be willing to visit in the course of the scholarship.

The fellowship is funded by the National Research Council - Institute of Atmospheric and Climate Science (ISAC - CNR) based in Bologna.

Scholarship nb. 14: Retrieval of geophysical variables from atmospheric spectral radiance measurements in the mid and far- infrared and their interpretation through chemical and atmospheric transport models

The  PhD research activity  will take place, after the first year courses, at the premises of the IFAC-CNR institute located in Sesto Fiorentino (Firenze, see http://www.ifac.cnr.it/ ) and will focus on the following two main areas:

Study of the potentialities of FORUM mission. FORUM (Far-infrared-Outgoing-Radiation Understanding and Monitoring, see https://www.forum-ee9.eu/ ) is a new space mission concept currently selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) as one out of two candidates to be the ninth Earth Explorer. The core team members, who proposed the FORUM experiment to ESA, belong to INO-CNR, IFAC-CNR and University of Bologna. The PhD student will work in close cooperation with the core team members to study and quantify the potentialities of the FORUM mission to explore and understand some of the most important feedback and forcing mechanisms to the Earth’s climate system.

Retrieval of the vertical distribution of minor atmospheric constituents from the decennial series of MIPAS  satellite measurements. The Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) onboard of the ENVISAT satellite, continuously measured limb-emission spectral radiances in the years from 2002 to 2012. From these measurements, it is possible to retrieve the vertical distribution of many minor atmospheric constituents. Apart some isolated cases, so far the analysis of MIPAS measurements was limited to the retrieval of the most spectrally intense constituents. The PhD student will be asked to contribute  to interpret the results of the retrievals with atmospheric chemical and transport models developed at the premises of international research institutions, such as DLR in Germany and MetOffice in the UK with which IFAC-CNR has been collaborating since longtime.

The fellowship is financed by the Department of Physics and Astronomy with resources from an agreement with the National Research Council–Institute of Applied Physics "Nello Carrara" based in Florence (IFAC - CNR) and with the European Space Agency - European Space Research Institute (ESA - ESRIN).

Scholarship nb. 15: Machine learning for the development of climate change impact models

The doctorate will allow the development of artificial intelligence methods for modeling climate data archives and a new generation of climate change impact models at the local level. Artificial intelligence techniques for climate change localization can provide competitive knowledge in the field of climate services and encourage the emergence of commercial activities in the digital economy sector linked to climate change.
The impact models developed in the project and the localized data of climate change can be immediately used in applications on agriculture, sustainable development of the coastal area, improvement of human health, urban development, also contributing to the definition of new services climate. The efficient identification of climatic anomalies will also allow the acceleration of the process of development and improvement of climate models, including meteorological and oceanographic components.

The fellowship is funded under the three-year High Competence Plan for research, technology transfer and entrepreneurship (POR FSE funds–Resolution n. 462 of 25/03/2019).

Scholarship nb. 16:Quantification of uncertainty in local tsunami models in the context of multi- hazard and multi-risk applications

 This project will focus on the quantification of uncertainty in local tsunami models in the context of multi-hazard and multi-risk applications. Specific points of interest are:
1) Characterization and quantification of uncertainty in local hazard assessments for seismically induced tsunamis.  We will consider aleatory and epistemic uncertainty arising from source selection as well as tsunami generation, propagation and inundation with NLSW models on topo-bathimetries at metric precision. The goal is to study the sensitivity of various tsunami intensity measures (tsunami height, velocity, energy flux, etc.) to different choices on hazard modelling, such as on source selection and filtering, on uncertainty of topo-bathymetric data, on tsunami modeling choices and boundary conditions, etc., in order to incorporate the effective uncertainty in local hazard quantifications.2) Inclusion of tsunami hazard in local multi-hazard and multi-risk quantification. We will develop potential procedures dealing with the management and the combination of multiple intensities (correlated or independent) that may strike a target simultaneously or in short times. The focus will be on local hazard quantification for seismic and seismically induced tsunami hazards. The goal is to produce a multi-hazard output that may enable an effective multi-risk quantification, in which the potential effects of multiple phenomena that may impact a built and/or inhabited environment are accounted for simultaneously.
The doctoral candidate will develop the research activity with Dr. Jacopo Selva at INGV Bologna, in collaboration with Prof. Alberto Armigliato (University of Bologna), and Dr. Stefano Lorito and Dr. Manuela Volpe (INGV Roma).  The candidate will work at INGV Bologna, which is a stimulating environment with researchers and students active in many fields of geophysics, including seismology, volcanology, and ocean sciences. The doctoral candidate will also participate to the broader activities of CAT (tsunami warning center of INGV, service provider within the NEAMTWS and for the Italian Civil Protection), and of the Tsunami Research Team at the University of Bologna (TRT-UNIBO), with a multi-decadal experience on the numerical modelling of tsunami generation by earthquakes, landslides and volcanic eruptions, of tsunami wave propagation and of their impact. These groups are very active and presently participate to numerous Italian, European, and International projects on these topics.

The fellowship is financed by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Bologna section.

Scholarship nb. 17: Raising operational efficiency of shipping via meteo-oceanographic information

 This PhD will focus on the reduction of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from the sector of maritime transportation. It accounts for about 2.2% of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions (Third IMO GHG study), a contribution larger than the quota of two Countries such as Italy and Spain altogether (EDGAR database).

An initial GHG reduction strategy was approved by IMO (International Maritime Organization) in April 2018 (MEPC.304(72) resolution) and sets reduction targets till 2030 and 2050. The European Union’s Regulation 757/2015 requires Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) of CO2 emissions from large vessels calling at European ports. The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed a Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development from 2021 to 2030. Its main aim is to support efforts to reverse the cycle of decline in ocean health and create improved conditions for sustainable development of the ocean, seas and coasts.

 This PhD work will be placed within such an International regulatory framework.

In particular, it will assess the contribution of ship route optimization by means of meteo-oceanographic information (analysis and forecast fields) to the reduction of CO2 emissions and CO2 emission intensity. New developments of the open-source numerical model VISIR (www.visir-model.net) are expected. The work will be supervised by Gianandrea Mannarini at CMCC.

The student, after the first year courses, will work at the CMCC-OceanLab facilities of Lecce (http://oceanlab.cmcc.it/).

The fellowship is supported by the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change Foundation (CMCC).

Scholarship nb. 18: Radiocarbon chronologies of glacial trees from sites in Mediterranean and southeast Europe

 The PhD candidate will work within the European Research Council project “RESOLUTION”.

The PhD candidate will be involved in fieldwork around Southern Europe, undertaking rigorous fieldwork to close the gap in knowledge about the presence of subfossil trees in the Glacial.  The PhD candidate will build tree-ring chronologies assisted by ¹⁴C pre-dating. The research will establish series of tree-ring proxies that can be used to infer climatic and environmental information in the respective time periods. This work will be done in collaboration with the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart.

The fellowship is funded from the University of Bologna through the European Research Council Project "RESOLUTION" given to the Departiment of Chemistry "Ciamician".

Scholarship nb. 19: Ocean small scale high frequency dynamics: modelling and observation

Understanding ocean small scales high frequency dynamics requires a multidisciplinary approach. This research topic deals with the study of very dense oceanographic dataset collected using a variety of oceanographic platforms. Observational gaps and theory validation will be supported by high resolution, state of the art, numerical models.

The student, after the first year courses, will undertake his/her research work at the CMRE, La Spezia.

The fellowship is funded by N.A.T.O. CMRE - Science and Technology Organization Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation

Scholarship nb. 20: Advanced ocean/sea ice modeling of the high latitude dynamics

The research topic considers the coupled ocean and sea-ice dynamics in the polar regions in order to improve our understanding of the processes inducing the sea-ice variability in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.  

The tools that will be used for the PhD thesis are a set of global reanalyses at eddy-permitting resolution models to investigate the polar ocean climate variability and a coupled ocean sea-ice model at eddy-resolving resolution in order to study the effect of mesoscale processes in the polar regions. 

The fellowship is sponsored by the EuroMediterranean Center on Climate Change Foundation (CMCC, https://www.cmcc.it), Ocean Modeling and Data Assimilation division located in Bologna, and the work will be carried out there.

Scholarship nb. 21: Modelling surface deformations due to volcanic, seismic and anthropic activities

The topic deals with developing modelling techniques useful to interpret surface deformation data. Ground deformations are the surface manifestation of a wide range of natural phenomena such as volcanic activity (e.g., magma migration), seismic cycle (pre- co- and post- seismic) and anthropic activity (e.g., hydrocarbon extraction). Recent developments in Earth Observation (EO) imagery have improved the capability to detect sub-mm changes of the ground, contributing to hazard assessment, for example in terms of maps of surface displacement and mean velocities. The student will develop and implement analytical and numerical models to interpret the observed EO and ground-based data, focusing on the real characteristics of the specific environment considered (e.g., volcanic area, seismic zone or gas extraction field). One of the desired outcomes is the development of products for volcanic hazard assessment (i.e., identify mid-term, short-term and near-real time volcanic system behavior to infer future behavior) to serve the risk evaluation and the phases of the volcanic risk management. The topic is connected to the GEO-supersite initiative (geo-gsln.org), and will be partially based on Copernicus data exploitation for all geohazard products.

The candidate will work, after the first year courses, at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Rome, which is a stimulating environment with research groups active in most of the fields of geophysics, among all seismology, volcanology, and environmental sciences.

The fellowship is financed by the INGV, ONT (Osservatorio Nazionale Terremoti) section.

Scholarship nb 22: Analysis of earthquake predictability

This scholarship is part of a H2020 EU project RISE.

The research topic will concentrate on the understanding of the limits of earthquake predictability. Various predictive hypotheses related to the evolution of seismicity and other physical parameters will be examined. In particular, different space-time models of seismicity before strong earthquakes will be considered and the role played by physical parameters such as heat flow, geodetic strain rate, focal mechanism, hypocentral depth, etc. will be evaluated empirically. The various methods will be compared through retrospective analyzes of seismic homogeneous catalogs or of catalogs homogenized through ad hoc investigations.