LINC · Learning about Interacting Networks in Climate

Improving our understanding of the Earth’s climate phenomena, such as El Niño, has a huge economic and social impact for present and future generations, and can underpin advances in areas as diverse as energy, environment, agricultural, etc. There is a great shortage of qualified workforce to perform this task and a major challenge is the training of qualified researchers that can approach climate phenomena from a complex systems point of view.The ITN proposed here, ‘Learning about Interacting Networks in Climate’ (LINC) aims to address these issues by training 12 ESRs and 3 ERs in the complete set of skills required to undertake a career in physics and geosciences with expertise in climatology, networks and complex systems. We will combine recent advances in network methodologies with state-of-the-art climate understanding.The consortium, comprising of 6 academic partners, 3 SMEs and one associate partner (also an SME) is in an excellent position to impart these skills, with expertise ranging from complex systems (network construction, nonlinear time series analysis), and environment and geosciences (nonlinear processes in the oceans and atmosphere) up to commercial applications (climate risk analysis, using climate networks to predict extreme events). The skills to be imparted in each of the 5 WPs (Network Construction and Analysis, Interacting Networks, Natural Climate Variability, Future Climate Change, and Tipping Points in the Climate System) can be applied across a wide range of interdisciplinary fields.In LINC the training of researchers will be aided by secondments at the commercial partners’ premises, a series of workshops, schools and a conference. The strong commitment towards training and research of the partners will guarantee graduates with full interdisciplinary capabilities, that will allow them to significantly advance the present knowledge of climate phenomena, and which will provide them a wide-range of career opportunities.