Dr Paula Gonzalez

Paula is a senior scientist with more than 10 years of experience using climate information for applied problems in sectors such as energy, water, and agriculture.

Areas of expertise

  • Climate variability and change
  • Subseasonal to decadal prediction
  • Forecast verification and statistical post-processing
  • Development of climate information for downstream modelling
  • Climate information for energy, water and agriculture

Publications by Dr Paula Gonzalez

Current activities

Paula is mainly focused on work for the energy sector, in particular projects focused on the weather and climate resilience of the energy system, which benefit from her background working in the energy meteorology research area since 2017. Paula also enjoys using her experience working on climate variability and predictability to benefit customers from other sectors such as water. 

Career background

Paula joined the Met Office and the Industry Consultancy team in June 2022. Prior to this Paula spent 5 years as a Research Scientist at the University of Reading. Most of this time she spent as a member of the Energy Meteorology group, doing research on the use of climate model output, subseasonal to seasonal predictions, and future projections for energy sector applications. She was also part of a WCSSP Southeast Asia project looking into improved subseasonal prediction of extreme rainfall. 

Before joining the University of Reading, Paula spent over 6 years at Columbia University, USA. She joined the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist working on decadal prediction and was later promoted to Associate Research Scientist working on different projects on seasonal prediction and climate change for sectors such as agriculture, water, and finance. For 2 years, she was also an instructor for the Sustainability Management Masters Programme, teaching a class on Climate and Water Resources. 

Paula obtained MSc (2006) and PhD (2010) degrees in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her undergrad and graduate research was focused on intraseasonal variability of precipitation over South America, and she benefited from a 4-month research stay at GFDL/Princeton University, USA where she performed idealized simulations using a global atmospheric model.  

External recognition

  • Member of the organizing committee for the workshop series on “Next Generation Challenges in Energy Climate Modelling” since 2020. She has given invited talks and organised sessions. 

  • Currently a member of the CMIP IPO Impacts and Adaptation author group, working on the data request for CMIP7. 

  • She is part of several groups and panels related to her work in the energy meteorology space, such as the IEA TEM on the use of reanalysis for energy applications, and the National Grid ESO expert advisory group on resource adequacy.