The IPCC was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to provide policymakers with rigorous, transparent, and objective scientific assessments on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options. The IPCC is now undertaking its Seventh Assessment (AR7) cycle. The IPCC Working Group I (WGI) assess the physical science underpinning past, present, and future climate change. The WGI Technical Support Unit (TSU) provides scientific, technical, operational and communications support that underpin and implement the WGI assessment.
The TSU works at the unique IPCC interface between science and policy in the provision of the climate knowledge and information that is relevant for policy needs and decision making. The team is responsible for facilitating and implementing the assessment process undertaken by the author teams and overseen by the WGI Bureau. We are seeking someone who is highly motivated to join a team that spans different areas of expertise including climate sciences (observations, climate processes, global and regional climate modeling), visual design and communication, digital information development and management, and international project management. The team is hosted by Université Paris-Saclay and located in the facilities of Ecole normale supérieure (ENS) Paris-Saclay in the Paris area.
About the role
Under the supervision of the Science Coordinator, the AI Specialist will join the TSU Science Team and play a pivotal role in developing, implementing, and optimizing artificial intelligence solutions to support the Authors, the TSU and the WGI Bureau during the preparation of the IPCC reports. This includes, for example, assessing tools to support specific activities ((systematic) literature reviews, processing of review comments, text refinement, translation…) but also developing best practices and guidelines regarding ethical and legal questions raised by the use of AI-based tools. He/she will work closely with the other TSU teams and with the IPCC Secretariat to identify opportunities for the use of AI.
Duties and Responsibilities
• Collaborate with Authors, Bureau and TSU members to understand the needs and identify opportunities for AI integration;
• Monitor trends and emerging technologies to provide recommendations on innovative AI solutions to be used by Authors and TSU in all domains where generative AI can be an option (e.g. literature search and systematic review, text refinement or translation, processing of review comments, consistency checking, data organization and analysis, support to figure development…);
• Provide guidance documents to authors on AI use;
• Share best practices of existing scientific assessment tools with Authors and TSU;
• Select and test relevant AI algorithms and packages, prototyping their application for Authors’ use as well as any procurement, configuration, maintenance, back-up, security and modernization of the AI packages managed internally;
• Design, develop, and implement specific AI-based tools or refinements of existing tools if needed;
• Collaborate with international stakeholders, organizations, and experts to share knowledge and best practices in AI for climate science;
• Provide expertise and guidance to teams regarding ethical and legal questions raised by the use of AI-based tools;
• Continuously monitor and optimize the performance of deployed AI models.