 |
Jagadish Shukla | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Awards | Padma Shri Award (2012), Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal of the NASA |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Meteorology |
Jagadish Shukla [1] (born 1944) is an Indian meteorologist and Distinguished University Professor at George Mason University in the United States.
Shukla was born in 1944 in the village of Middha in the Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh, India. This village had no electricity, no roads or transportation, and no primary school building. Most of his primary school education was received under a large banyan tree. He passed from the S.R.S. High School, Sheopur, in the first class with distinction in Mathematics and Sanskrit. He studied science, firstly outside school, then at S.C. College, Ballia. At Banaras Hindu University, he passed BSc (honors) at the age of 18 with Physics, Mathematics, and Geology (first class) followed after a brief interval from studies by an MSc in Geophysics in 1964 and PhD in Geophysics in 1971 as an external student of BHU. He subsequently gained an ScD in Meteorology from MIT in 1976.
Shukla is a Distinguished University Professor at George Mason University, USA, where he founded the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Earth Sciences and Climate Dynamics PhD Program.
During the 1970s, the "butterfly effect" or "chaos" was the dominant theme of predictability research, and the community was sceptical about the prospects for dynamical seasonal prediction. Shukla's research led to the notion of predictability in the midst of chaos, and the development of a scientific basis for the prediction of climate which derives from the influence of the slow variations of the atmosphere's lower boundary conditions and their interactions with the atmosphere. Recognizing the enormous scientific implications and potential benefits to society from accurate and reliable seasonal forecasts, Shukla took an extraordinary and risky decision to resign from his tenure professorship at the University of Maryland, and start a nonprofit institute, IGES, in his garage. Work by Shukla and his scientific colleagues has inspired routine dynamical seasonal prediction by numerous weather and climate centres around the world, helping society manage agricultural and economic activities, saving lives and property. Shukla also recognised the importance of land surface processes in climate variability and predictability and therefore established the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA). Recognition of the importance of atmosphere-land interactions in climate dynamics has led to numerous research programs, field experiments, and space-missions. Another important contribution made by Shukla was his proposal in the early 1980s to carry out retrospective analysis of atmospheric observations. COLA scientists conducted the first pilot reanalysis as proof of concept at a time when the community was sceptical about the feasibility of reanalysis. Reanalysis of past data and climate diagnostic studies are now an important component of climate research.
Shukla's scientific contributions include studies of: the dynamics of monsoon depressions; the influences of snow, albedo, soil wetness, and surface roughness on climate variability; the influences of sea surface temperature in the Arabian Sea, equatorial Pacific Ocean, and north Pacific Ocean on seasonal variability; the intraseasonal and inter-annual variability of monsoons; the predictability and prediction of monsoons, tropical droughts, and El Niño and the Southern Oscillation; Amazon deforestation, and desertification and reforestation in Sahel; and the seamless prediction of natural and forced climate variability. He has served as PhD thesis adviser for more than 20 students at MIT, the University of Maryland, and George Mason University. He has contributed to over 250 scientific papers and book chapters as author or co-author. He was a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Vice-President Al Gore. He was appointed by the Governors of Virginia in 2008 and 2014 to their respective Climate Commissions.
Shukla has worked closely with scientists in India, Italy, Brazil, and South Korea. At the behest of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Shukla helped establish the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) in New Delhi, India. At the behest of the late Dr. Abdus Salam, Shukla helped to form a weather and climate research group at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, which provides training to many scientists from developing countries. Shukla and COLA scientists have also helped in the establishment of a new Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences in Allahabad University, India. He was a member of the inaugural committees for the establishment of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) at Columbia University, and the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) at the University of Hawaii. In collaboration with the Director of ICTP, and the Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Shukla helped establish the South Asian Climate Outlook Forum which enables South Asian countries to meet before each monsoon season to discuss their monsoon forecasts. At the behest of the then Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, Shukla was appointed to be the Chairman of the International Advisory Panel to advance the weather and climate enterprise of India.
Shukla has been associated with the World Climate Research Programme since its inception. He has been a member or chairman of numerous national and international programs, including the Monsoon Experiment (MONEX), the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM), the Dynamical Extended-Range Forecasting (DERF) project, the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere program (TOGA), the Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land Surface (GOALS) Program, the Climate Variability (CLIVAR) program, the ECMWF re-analysis (ERA) project, the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX), Continental-scale International Project (GCIP), the Atlantic Climate Change Program (ACCP), the Seasonal-to-Interannual Modeling and Analysis Project (SIMAP), the Austral-Asian Monsoon Working Group (AAMWG), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Joint Scientific Committee (JSC), the Coordinated Observation and Prediction of the Earth System (COPES) program, and the WCRP Modeling Panel (WMP). He was chairman of the 2008 World Modeling Summit for Climate Prediction, and he has been an advocate for creating multi-national climate modelling and prediction centres.
Shukla was the Founding President of the Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES) and directed its Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA), which aims to improve understanding of climate variability and predictability on intraseasonal to decadal time scales within a changing climate. In 2013 it was decided to dissolve IGES. In 2015, IGES/COLA staff were hired as GMU employees and COLA continues to thrive as a centre of excellence within GMU.
Shukla has also been involved with several organisations dedicated to social justice, poverty reduction, and rural development. He was a long-time member of the Board of Trustees of the Seghal Foundation, dedicated to rural development in India. He established Gandhi College in his village for education of rural students especially women.
On 1 September 2015, Shukla was lead author of a letter from twenty climate scientists to President Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and OSTP Director John Holdren calling on government to prosecute corporations and other organizations that have “knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change” using RICO laws designed for other forms of organized crime. [4] This letter was cited the following October by Representative Lamar Smith (R–TX) in an announcement of plans to investigate Shukla's IGES. [5] Subsequently, the Inspector General of the National Science Foundation completed the investigation of IGES in November 2017 and concluded that there was no evidence to substantiate the allegations, the investigation was closed, and no further action would be taken.
The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is an independent intergovernmental organisation supported by most of the nations of Europe. It is based at three sites: Shinfield Park, Reading, United Kingdom; Bologna, Italy; and Bonn, Germany. It operates one of the largest supercomputer complexes in Europe and the world's largest archive of numerical weather prediction data.
Climatology or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. This modern field of study is regarded as a branch of the atmospheric sciences and a subfield of physical geography, which is one of the Earth sciences. Climatology now includes aspects of oceanography and biogeochemistry.
The Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal is the highest award for atmospheric science of the American Meteorological Society. It is presented to individual scientists, who receive a medal. Named in honor of meteorology and oceanography pioneer Carl-Gustaf Rossby, who was also its second (1953) recipient.
The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) is an international programme that helps to coordinate global climate research. The WCRP was established in 1980, under the joint sponsorship of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Council for Science (ICSU), and has also been sponsored by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO since 1993.
The Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere program (TOGA) was a ten-year study (1985-1994) of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) aimed specifically at the prediction of climate phenomena on time scales of months to years.
Kevin Edward Trenberth is part of the Climate Analysis Section at the US NCAR National Center for Atmospheric Research. He was a lead author of the 2001 and 2007 IPCC Scientific Assessment of Climate Change and serves on the Scientific Steering Group for the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) program. He chaired the WCRP Observation and Assimilation Panel from 2004 to 2010 and chaired the Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) scientific steering group from 2010 to 2013. In addition, he served on the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme, and has made significant contributions to research into El Niño-Southern Oscillation.
Sir Gilbert Thomas Walker was an English physicist and statistician of the 20th century. Walker studied mathematics and applied it to a variety of fields including aerodynamics, electromagnetism and the analysis of time-series data before taking up a teaching position at the University of Cambridge. Although he had no experience in meteorology, he was recruited for a post in the Indian Meteorological Department where he worked on statistical approaches to predict the monsoons. He developed the methods in the analysis of time-series data that are now called the Yule-Walker equations. He is known for his groundbreaking description of the Southern Oscillation, a major phenomenon of global climate, and for discovering what is named after him as the Walker circulation, and for greatly advancing the study of climate in general. He was also instrumental in aiding the early career of the Indian mathematical prodigy, Srinivasa Ramanujan.
Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) is a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). OAR is also referred to as NOAA Research.
Joseph Smagorinsky was an American meteorologist and the first director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL).
Christopher William "Chris" Landsea is an American meteorologist, formerly a research meteorologist with the Hurricane Research Division of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory at NOAA, and now the Science and Operations Officer at the National Hurricane Center. He is a member of the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society.
The Global Energy and Water Exchanges Project is an international research project and a core project of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP).
Eugenia Enriqueta Kalnay is an Argentine meteorologist and a Distinguished University Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, which is part of the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park in the United States.
Dame Julia Mary Slingo is a British meteorologist and climate scientist. She was Chief Scientist at the Met Office from 2009 until 2016. She is also a Visiting Professor in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, where she held, prior to appointment to the Met Office, the positions of Director of Climate Research in the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) National Centre for Atmospheric Science and founding Director of the Walker Institute for Climate System Research.
Adam A. Scaife FRMetS FInstP is a British physicist and head of long range prediction at the Met Office. He is also a professor at Exeter University. Scaife carries out research into long range weather forecasting and computer modelling of the climate and has published around 200 peer reviewed studies on atmospheric dynamics, computer modelling and climate as well as popular science and academic books on meteorology.
Uma Charan Mohanty is an Indian meteorologist and an emeritus professor at the School of Earth, Ocean and Climate Sciences of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar. He is the president of Odisha Bigyan Academy and is known for his researches on the Indian summer monsoon. Besides being an elected fellow of the Indian Geophysical Union, he is also an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences, India. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences in 1993.
Bhupendra Nath Goswami is an Indian meteorologist, climatologist, a former director of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM). and a Pisharoty Chair Professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research. He is known for his researches on the Indian monsoon dynamics and is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences, India as well as The World Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences in 1995.
Prashant Goswami is an Indian computational geoscientist, climatologist and the director of the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies, New Delhi. He is a former scientist at the Fourth Paradigm Institute and is known for his studies on the tropical atmospheric variability across the time scales. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences in 2001.
Peter John Webster is a meteorologist and climate dynamicist relating to the dynamics of large-scale coupled ocean-atmosphere systems of the tropics, notably the Asian monsoon. Webster holds degrees in applied physics, mathematics and meteorology. Webster studies the basic dynamics of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system in the tropics and has applied this basic knowledge to developing warning systems for extreme weather events in Asia. He has served on a number of prestigious national and international committees including the World Climate Research Program's Joint Scientific Committee (1983-1987), chaired the international Tropical Ocean Global Atmospheric (TOGA) organizing committee (1988–94) and was co-organizer of the multinational TOGA Couple Ocean-Atmosphere (1993). He is Emeritus Professor in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology and co-founder and Chief Scientist of Climate Forecast Applications Network LLC, a weather and climate services company.
William Ka Ming Lau is a senior scientist at the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, a research center at the University of Maryland and an Adjunct Professor of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Maryland. A physicist by training, his research spans over 4 decades covering a wide range of topics in climate dynamics, tropical meteorology, ocean-atmosphere coupling, aerosol-water cycle interactions, and climate variability and change. Lau conducted pioneering research on atmospheric teleconnection, and the global monsoon climate system. He discovered the aerosol-monsoon regional feedback mechanism, i.e., the Elevated Heat Pump (EHP) effect that strongly modulate climate change in Asian monsoon regions. He was the senior author of a popular research reference book, “Intraseasonal Variability in the Atmosphere-Ocean Climate System”. As of November 2020, he has coauthored 297 refereed papers, with total citation = 33,932, h-index=101.
June-Yi Lee is an atmospheric scientist at Pusan National University known for her use of models to investigate the atmosphere and the ocean under future climate scenarios.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
