DTU Space would like to invite applications for a 3-year PhD position starting in June 2015 on the topic of Earth’s decaying dipole magnetic field. The funding is shared between the Danish Council for Independent Research and the Technical University of Denmark.

The position will be based in the Division of Geomagnetism whose research focuses on exploring the Earth and its environment using the geomagnetic field. Earth’s magnetic field, is a fundamental aspect of our planet’s natural environment that protects us from the solar wind. It has for many centuries provided a natural means of orientation, and is today used in many mobile devices and by the directional drilling industry. The Earth’s magnetic field is however weakening - the strength of its primary dipole part has decayed by almost 10% since direct records began in 1840.

Responsibilities and tasks
In this PhD project, the student will use new satellite and ground-based magnetic measurements to test the hypothesis that the decay in the Earth’s dipole is driven by a planetary-scale gyre in the planet’s liquid metal outer core. The underlying physics of dipole decay will also be studied using numerical modeling.

The PhD student will develop new techniques in order to isolate slow changes in Earth’s magnetic field using data collected by ESA’s Swarm satellite trio, launched in November 2013. This will involve working with large observational data sets, implementing and testing new source-separation algorithms and carrying out comparisons with independent ground observatory data. In the second part of the project, the student will compare the observed patterns of field change with predictions from numerical models of the geodynamo including the impact of a planetary-scale gyre in the outer core.