• Ocean Circulation and Climate Dynamics
• Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
• AI and Data-Driven Ocean Science
• Process-Resolving Ocean Modelling

Nihar Paul is a faculty member and a physical oceanographer whose research focuses on the dynamics of the upper ocean across a wide range of spatial scales, from basin-scale circulation to submesoscale processes (approximately 0.1−10 km). 

Prior to his current position, he completed postdoctoral research at the Department of Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Massachusetts, USA, and at the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), Chennai, India. Earlier, he obtained his master’s and PhD degrees in Climate Science from the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (CAOS), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, India.

His research investigates advective transport, stirring, and mixing in the ocean using Lagrangian frameworks, with a particular emphasis on quantifying transport pathways, as well as transit and residence times. He is especially interested in understanding the role of mesoscale and submesoscale features, such as eddies, fronts, and filaments in regulating ocean circulation, tracer distributions, and associated mixing processes.

In addition, his work examines air-sea interactions and their influence on upper-ocean variability, with a particular focus on mesoscale and submesoscale eddies in the Indian Ocean. His research integrates satellite observations, in situ measurements from field campaigns including the moored buoy, numerical simulations, and data-driven approaches, including machine learning, to investigate ocean dynamics and interactions between eddies and waves. 

By combining analytical to process-oriented analyses and general circulation modelling, his work aims to advance understanding of ocean dynamics and their links to climate variability. These dynamics remain underrepresented in climate models, and his work seeks to decipher the underlying physics needed to better represent upper-ocean processes.