Veerabhadran Ramanathan

Veerabhadran "Ram" Ramanathan (born 24

November 1944) is Edward A. Frieman Endowed Veerabhadran Ramanathan
Presidential Chair in Climate Sustainability Scripps
Institution of Oceanography, University of California,
San Diego. He has contributed to many areas of the
atmospheric and climate sciences including
developments to general circulation models,
atmospheric chemistry, and radiative transfer. He has
been a part of major projects such as the Indian Ocean
Experiment (INDOEX) and the Earth Radiation
Budget Experiment (ERBE), and is known for his
contributions to the areas of climate physics, Climate
Change and atmospheric aerosols research. He is now Portrait of Veerabhadran Ramanathan
the Chair of Bending the Curve: Climate Change
Born 24 November 1944[1]
Solutions education project of University of California.
Chennai, Madras Presidency,
He has received numerous awards, and is a member of
British India
the US National Academy of Sciences. He has spoken
Alma mater Annamalai University
about the topic of global warming, and written that
IISc
"the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming is,
Stony Brook
in my opinion, the most important environmental issue
facing the world today."[2] Awards • Buys Ballot Medal
• Carl-Gustaf Rossby
Due to his close affiliation with Pope Francis, Research Medal
Ramanathan has been described as "The Pope's climate • Tyler Prize for Environmental
scientist". He was influential in the creation of Laudato Achievement
si', the Pope's encyclical on climate change.[3] • BBVA Foundation Frontiers
of Knowledge Award
• Tang Prize
Background and education Scientific career
Fields Atmospheric Scientist
Ramanathan was born in Chennai, India. At the age of
11, he moved with his family to Bangalore. The classes Institutions Scripps Institution of
at the school he attended were taught in English, and Oceanography
not his native Tamil. He admits that he "lost the habit Doctoral Robert Cess
of listening to my teachers and had to figure out things advisor
on my own".[4] He received his BE degree from Website [Link] ([Link]
Annamalai University, and ME degree from the Indian [Link])
Institute of Science. In 1970, he arrived in the US to
study interferometry at the State University of New York at Stony Brook under the direction of Robert
Cess. Before Ramanathan could begin working on his PhD research, Cess decided to change his research
and focus on planetary atmospheres.

Research and publications

Ramanathan has contributed to many areas of the
atmospheric sciences. His first major findings were in the
mid-1970s and were related to the greenhouse effect of
CFCs and other trace gases[5][6] Until that time, carbon
dioxide was thought to be the sole greenhouse gas
responsible for global warming. He also contributed to the
early development of global circulation models[7] and the
detecting and attribution of climate change.[8]

His focus then shifted to the radiative effects of clouds on

the climate. This was done using the Earth Radiation
Budget Experiment (ERBE), which showed that clouds
have a large cooling effect on the planet.[9][10] ERBE was
also able to measure the greenhouse effect without the use
of climate models.[11]

Recently, he has published on the aerosol radiative

properties. His work has shown that aerosols have a
cooling effect on the surface of the planet, and at the top of Atmospheric brown clouds in northeastern
India and Bangladesh as seen from space
the atmosphere, but the forcing at the top of the
atmosphere was only one-third the magnitude as the
surface forcing. This has implications for the hydrologic cycle.[12] While working on the Central
Equatorial Pacific Experiment, he discovered that absorbing black carbonaceous aerosols have a larger
influence on climate than previously thought, which led to the development of the Indian Ocean
Experiment (INDOEX).[13] In the 1990s, he led the Indian Ocean Experiment with Paul Crutzen and
discovered the widespread existence of atmospheric brown clouds covering much of the Indian Ocean
region. They found that the vast majority of the aerosols were anthropogenic in origin, and that the
surface cooling caused by the aerosols is more important than the atmospheric heating.[14] These
atmospheric brown clouds may have masked as much as 50% of the surface heating caused by the
increase in carbon dioxide, and caused reduced precipitation during the Indian monsoon.[15]

Ramanathan is also interested in the impact of climate change on agriculture in India. While atmospheric
brown clouds partially offset the warming due from carbon dioxide, their effect on agriculture has been
less certain. A statistical rice model couple to a regional climate model has shown that reductions of both
carbon dioxide and atmospheric brown clouds will increase crop yield.[16]

He has also written on avoiding dangerous anthropogenic climate change. Ramanathan writes that there
are several tipping points in the climate system, and that they do not all occur at the same temperature
threshold; the tipping point for the arctic summer sea ice is likely to be smaller than that for the West
Antarctic Ice Sheet. While the planet has seen an observed warming of 0.6 °C since pre-industrial times,
it has already most likely committed itself to 2.4 °C (1.4 °C to 4.3 °C) of warming. These values surpass
several of the tipping point thresholds.[17] In a 2014 paper, Ramanathan and co-authors suggested that
mitigating methane, soot, ozone and hydrofluorocarbons in the atmosphere could reduce the expected sea
level rise due to climate change.[18]

Project Surya
In March 2007, Ramanathan wrote a white paper with Balakrishnan on a potential project that will reduce
air pollution and global warming.[19] Project Surya, which means Sun in Sanskrit, will use inexpensive
solar cookers in rural India, and document the reductions in carbon dioxide and soot emissions. The
byproducts of biofuel cooking and biomass burning are significant contributors to global warming, and
the expanded use of renewable energy is expected to decrease their effects.

The burning of solid fuels causes substantial health risks as well. An estimated 440,000 deaths per year
are attributed to unsanitary food preparation techniques due to aerosol exposure.[20] Over 3 billion people
cook and heat their home by burning biomass such as wood and feces. The project, costing an estimated
$4.5 million, will buy 3,500 cookers and impact up to 15,000 people. As of November 2008, the project
has not been funded.[21]

Project Surya was soft launched in March 2009. Each household in the village of Khairatpur, Uttar
Pradesh received a biomass cook stoves and a solar lamp. Surya has since received $150,000 in funding
from UNEP.[22]

Honors and awards

Ramanathan is an ISI highly cited researcher.[23] He is a fellow of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Society and American Geophysical Union. He
became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995.[24] In 1995, the Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences awarded him the Buys Ballot Medal.[25] In 2002, he was
awarded the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal, "... for fundamental insights into the radiative roles of
clouds, aerosols and key gases in the Earth's climate system." He was elected a member of the US
National Academy of Sciences in 2002 "... for fundamental contributions to our modern understanding of
global climate change and human impacts on climate and environment",[26] an Academician of the
Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2004, a member the American Philosophical Society in 2006,[27] and a
member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2008.[28] Also, Veerabhadran Ramanathan has
been bestowed with the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award 2015 in the Climate Change
category for discovering that human-produced gases and pollutants other than CO2 have a huge power to
alter the Earth's climate, and that by acting on them it is possible to make a short-term dent on the rate of
global warming. He received the prestigious Tang Prize for Sustainable Development in 2018. He was
awarded the 90th annual Mendel Medal by Villanova University in 2018 for his work on climate
change.[29] Ramanathan is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award (Champions of the Earth) in
2013.[30]

Articles
Why Black Carbon and Ozone Also Matter ([Link]
ica-seddon-wallack-and-veerabhadran-ramanathan/the-other-climate-changers), in
September/October 2009 Foreign Affairs with Veerabhadran Ramanathan and Jessica
Seddon Wallack.
The Climate Threat We Can Beat ([Link]
or-charles-f-kennel-veerabhadran-ramanathan/the-climate-threat-we-can-beat), in May/June
2012 Foreign Affairs with David G. Victor, Charles F. Kennel, Veerabhadran Ramanathan
(website is paid while article is current)[31]

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([Link]
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31. UCSD Researchers: Where International Climate Policy Has Failed, Grassroots Efforts Can
Succeed; Control of greenhouse agents other than CO2 needs to reach the local level,
according to a new Foreign Affairs essay ([Link]
earchers_where_international_climate_policy_has_failed_grassroots_e/) 26 April 2012
University of California, San Diego

External links
Prof. V. (Ram) Ramanathan ([Link]
Biography of Veerabhadran Ramanathan ([Link]
p://[Link]/biography/PNAS_Bio.pdf)
Testimonial to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform ([Link]
[Link]/web/20081111092922/[Link]
Project Surya ([Link]

Retrieved from "[Link]