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Climate Science Lead Consultant

Employer
WSP USA
Location
Washington, Dist. of Columbia, US
Salary
Competitive
Closing date
May 18, 2022

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Sector
Academic / Research
Field
Conservation science
Discipline
Climate Change
Salary Type
Salary
Employment Type
Full time
This Opportunity
WSP is currently initiating a search for a Climate Science Lead Consultant to support our company's growing Resilience Practice, which is part of our Climate Resilience and Sustainability Business Line. This is a full-time position located in any of our United States offices.

This new technical position is for a team member that will support our analysis of climate and environmental data and use geospatial tools for data visualization. You will work with other experts from our Resilience Practice, including climate scientists, engineers, planners, economists, policy specialists, and risk modelers. Through this job posting, we're looking to expand our organization to meet our growing portfolio of clients, for whom we identify their risk to climate-related hazards (including socio-economic impacts) and develop resilience strategies and plans to reduce these risks.
Your Impact
  • Analyze environmental data, including climate model simulations, to assess current and future exposures. This includes researching appropriate climate metrics and thresholds for climate impact assessments and examining environmental data for best-use purposes and appropriate applications.
  • Prepare documentation and give presentations that succinctly summarize methodologies and results for technical and lay audiences.
  • Participate on multiple projects, delivering on project commitments through effective coordination with internal colleagues, external resources and agencies, and consulting team partners.
  • Contribute to a diverse team of experts working to advance the Resilience Practice through effective data-driven analysis and decision-making.
  • Represent WSP USA in the marketplace, contributing capabilities and experiences to other WSP offices.
Who You Are
Required Qualifications
  • Minimum 7 years of relevant professional experience.
  • Advanced degree in atmospheric sciences, climatology, or a related field.
  • Command of climatology and the use of statistics and probability theory in that context.
  • Experience working with tools and/or coding scripts for effective data processing, analysis, and visualization of environmental data, particularly atmospheric data.
  • Experience programming in languages (e.g., R, Matlab, Python) and adapting scripts written by colleagues.
  • Technical capabilities and leadership in project design and delivery.
  • Attention to detail; commitment and skills to identify and detect errors; commitment to thorough quality reviews and checks; and commitment to accuracy, correctness, and excellence.
  • Ability to innovate on challenging topics to produce client-tailored products.
  • Experience working independently, and on efforts requiring remote collaboration.
  • Experience communicating orally and in writing technical analysis and results to non-technical audiences using data visualization and maps.
  • Exercise responsible and ethical decision-making regarding company funds, resources and conduct and adhere to WSP's Code of Conduct and related policies and procedures.
  • Proven track record of upholding workplace safety and ability to abide by WSP's health, safety and drug/alcohol and harassment policies.

Advanced understanding of:
  • The physical processes causing climate change;
  • The IPCC CMIP5, the global climate models included therein (including their strengths and weaknesses), and RCP emissions scenarios
  • Different climate model downscaling methodologies and datasets, including their strengths and weaknesses, and the ability to select contextually appropriate climate data on a project basis
  • The uncertainties associated with climate modeling and application of bias-correction/calibration in models
  • The virtues of a scenario-based approach to decision-making and the role of climate models in decision-making
  • The relationships between climate change and sea level rise and how sea level rise projections vary given different climate scenario
  • The state of climate science research.

Preferred Qualifications:
  • Experience using baseline observation data of weather and climate to simulate future climate changes.
  • Experience generating climate projections translated to various civil engineering disciplines.
  • Experiencing developing probabilistic sub-24 hour precipitation projections (e.g., IDF curves)
  • Experience modeling urban heat island effects and projections of climate change influencing this phenomenon.
  • Experience designing and delivering training and/or instruction on climate science and climate projection applications.
  • Experience working with hazard modeling approaches that use climate data as inputs (e.g., hydrologic modeling, wildfire modeling, flood and storm surge modeling).
  • Experience conducting climate-related vulnerability and risk assessments for different infrastructure sectors.
  • Project management, business development and partnership building experience.

Compensation and Benefits:

WSP provides a comprehensive suite of benefits including medical, dental, vision, disability, life, and retirement savings focused on providing health and financial stability throughout the employee's career.
Expected Salary:$85,300 - $174,200

WSP USA is providing the compensation range and general description of other compensation and benefits that the company in good faith believes it might pay and/or offer for this position based on the successful applicant's education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities in addition to internal equity and geographic location. WSP USA reserves the right to ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and offer additional benefits and other compensation, depending on circumstances not related to an applicant's sex or other status protected by local, state, or federal law.

Relocation assistance is not available for this position.

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