We are looking for a post doctoral researcher with an expertise in Maritime or Environmental and Climate History to work in the interdisciplinary project "Deciphering old ship Records to Understand the Maritime Structure of the Atlantic Intertropical Convergence Zone" (DOLDRUMS), a collaboration between Bielefeld University and the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg funded by the Volkswagen foundation. We offer an excellent opportunity to pursue postdoctoral research, which, in Bielefeld, is embedded in the context of the vibrant Center for Inter American Studies (CIAS) and its research focus in Environmental and Climate History of the Americas.
 
Approximately one-third of global precipitation is concentrated within the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), a narrow band of rain located in the tropics. Anticipated shifts in the ITCZ’s location, width, and intensity due to climate change may significantly affect water resources for hundreds of millions of individuals. Making accurate projections necessitates a robust understanding of historical variations; however, available data remains limited. The DOLDRUMS project addresses this gap by integrating historical and meteorological research to determine if patterns from the past can be discerned through the analysis of historical ship logs. Unlike natural archives, surface wind records over oceans are largely absent, prompting DOLDRUMS to seek evidence in human records—specifically, logbooks from sailing vessels involved in the transatlantic slave trade, which forcibly relocated 12.5 million humans from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean between the 16th and 19th centuries. The study concentrates on the period between 1750 and approximately 1820, with a specific focus on the years 1783/ 84 and will involve the reconstruction of ship routes from log book data as well as qualitative research on the conditions on slave ships of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

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