About

I am an atmospheric scientist interested in using simple models of energy transfer in Earth’s atmosphere to explain our climate. My primary interests are rainfall, tropical convection, and radiative transfer.

Currently, I work as a postdoctoral researcher with Robert Pincus and Lorenzo Polvani at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, studying how increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide impact stratospheric temperature. Prior to this, I earned my PhD in Applied Math and Atmospheric Science at Columbia University under the mentorship of Adam Sobel and Michela Biasutti, where we used idealized models to explain the mechanisms controlling the spatial pattern of tropical rainfall. Before entering the climate space, I worked as a thermal engineer at Ball Aerospace, designing and analyzing cooling systems aboard satellites and aircraft.

Publications

• Cohen, S., R. Pincus, and L. Polvani, 2026: Why increases in CO2 cool the stratosphere and how this amplifies radiative forcing. Nature. Geosci., doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-7608058/v1. (accepted)
• Cohen, S., and R. Pincus, 2025: A spectroscopic theory for how mean rainfall changes with surface temperature. Sci. Adv., 11, eadv6191. doi:10.1126/sciadv.adv6191.
• Cohen, S., M. Biasutti, and A. Sobel, 2025: Modeling tropical precipitation in a single column with a boundary layer forcing. J. Atmos. Sci., 82, 1615-1627, doi:10.1175/JAS-D-24-0111.1.
• Cohen, S., 2025: Using Single Column Models to Understand the Mechanisms Controlling Rainfall. Columbia Univ. ProQuest Dis. and Theses
• Cohen, S., A. Sobel, M. Biasutti, S. Wang, I. Simpson, A. Gettelman, and I. Hu, 2024: Implementation and exploration of parametrizations of large-scale dynamics in NCAR’s Single Column Atmosphere Model SCAM6. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst., 16, e2023MS003866. doi:10.1029/2023MS003866.
• S. Cohen, K. Weed, J. Lambert, “An Analytical Approximation for Temperature Distributions in Micro Pin Fin Arrays”, AIAA SciTech Forum and Exposition, 2020.
• J. D. Brown, J. N. Fernandez, S. P. Cohen, K. J. Kuchenbecker, “A Wrist-Squeezing Force-Feedback System for Robotic Surgery Training”, World Haptics Conference (WHC), pp. 107-112, 2017.

Education and Experience

• Postdoctoral Research Scientist
  • Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, 2024-Present
• Ph.D. in Applied Math and Atmospheric Science
  • Columbia University, 2020-2024
• Associate Thermal Engineer
  • Ball Aerospace, 2018-2020
• M.S.E and B.S.E. in Mechanical Engineering
  • University of Pennsylvania, 2013-2017

Contact and CV

• CV
• Google Scholar
• ORCiD
• LinkedIn
• sean.cohen@columbia.edu