Paul Lerner

Dr. Paul Lerner is an Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University and at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He has expertise in the global carbon cycle, marine biogeochemical cycles, and in development and evaluation of Earth System Models. He is currently one of the primary developer of the NASA-GISS ocean biogeochemical model, the marine carbon, nutrient, and ecosystem model within the NASA-GISS Climate Model.

Paul received his Ph.D. in chemical oceanography at the MIT/WHOI Join Program in 2018. He spent the next three years as a NASA postdoctoral program fellow, with a focus on improving NOBMg and incorporating new element cycles such as the marine oxygen cycle. He has continued working at NASA-GISS during his appointment at Columbia University, with research focusing on future changes in climate, the carbon cycle, and other biogeochemical cycles, including under scenarios and idealized pathways, cessation of emissions, CO2 removal, and tipping points. His research also focuses on analysis of carbon-climate feedbacks under a variety of future climate scenarios. He also has experience combing model output with machine learning approaches and has contributed to the development of an emulator of the NASA-GISS Earth System Model.

Paul's research involve using a combination of in-situ and remote sensing datasets for model evaluation, as well as extensive multi-model assessments. He participates in multiple model intercomparisons under the CMIP framework, including C4MIP, FLAT10-MIP, TIPMIP, TIPMIP-Ocean, AERA-MIP, OAE-MIP, and WIE-MIP. He is also contributing to the TCRE-assessment, focused on improving constraints for the ocean carbon cycle feedback. Paul has also contributed to publications on the exchange of carbon at the land-ocean interface, and is generally interested in improving model's representation of coupling of biogeochemical cycles between atmosphere, land, and ocean.