Scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan longed for the American dream while growing up in southern India in the 1960s: specifically, a Chevrolet Impala, a muscle car he learned about from his tire salesman father.. Ramanathan made it to the United States in his 20s, but never bought his gas guzzler, mostly because his scientific knowledge of global warming quickly eclipsed his income.
Fast forward to the 1970s and Ramanathan, now a new postdoctoral fellow in planetary sciences, was spending his days working as a visiting researcher at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and his evenings on a side project he hid from his supervisors. His solitary overnight research would end up changing how scientists view global warming.
The young scientist had discovered that chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, then widely used in the manufacture of refrigerators, air conditioning units and spray cans, had a significant greenhouse effect. Ramanathan had briefly encountered these industrial chemicals in his first job at a refrigeration company. Like carbon dioxide, CFCs trap heat in the atmosphere. In fact, Ramanathan’s calculations suggested, they were more powerful: One molecule of CFC can have the same warming effect as up to 10,000 molecules of carbon dioxide. For three months, he repeated the calculations looking for an alternative explanation. He found nothing.
“I was just a postdoc immigrant from India. I didn’t know if I should tell NASA about this or not. I just sent the paper off,” Ramanathan recalled.
The journal Science published the findings, and his work became the front page of The New York Times in 1975. The idea that CFCs could potentially be such a powerful force in global warming was also met with disbelief, not least by Ramanathan himself, who started the project purely out of curiosity at a time when climate change was not a pressing concern.
Ultimately, Ramanathan established the now widely accepted fact that greenhouse gases other than CO2 are a major contributor to global warming, a vitally important insight that underpinned the first successful climate mitigation policy.
Ramanathan in the mid-seventies when he worked at NASA, where he made his first scientific breakthrough. – Courtesy Veerabhadran Ramanathan
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Thursday awarded Ramanathan, a distinguished research professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, the prestigious Crafoord Prize, which for some winners was a precursor to a Nobel Prize.
“It broadened our understanding of how humanity is affecting the composition of the atmosphere, climate and air quality and how these three interact,” said Ilona Riipinen, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Stockholm University in Sweden and a member of the committee that awarded the prize, which is worth 8 million Swedish kronor (about $900,000).
Ramanathan, 81, is now a distinguished research professor of climate and atmospheric sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. – Erik Jepsen
Accidental climate scientist
Ramanathan, who studied engineering in Bengaluru, India, before moving to the United States, said his first career breakthrough was the result of several happy “accidents” that allowed him to connect the dots between different fields of study.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in engineering, he had spent an unhappy time working in a refrigerator company and making sure that the cooling agent – CFCs – did not leak. When he was 26 years old, he moved to the United States and began a doctorate at the University of the State of New York at Stony Brook in a field related to engineering.
Ramanathan, however, found that his supervisor unexpectedly switched focus, and his dissertation ended up detailing the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere of Venus. Then, while working at NASA Langley, he encountered the work of scientists Mario Molina and Frank Rowland. Their research showed that CFCs depleted ozone, a natural atmospheric gas that protects humans from cancer-causing radiation. (The duo later won the Nobel Prize in 1995.) Not until the 1980s did CFCs generally become a matter of public concern.
Before his 1975 investigation, Ramanathan said he was not the least bit worried about climate change. However, as he and others expanded the list of trace gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, that contributed to the greenhouse effect, Ramanathan became deeply concerned that global warming would manifest much earlier than the prevailing thinking at the time. A paper he co-authored in 1985 concluded that trace gases were potentially as important as CO2 for long-term global warming.
“That had a huge impact. The whole climate community stood up and said, “Wait a minute. Global warming will come twice as fast as we thought. It will not be your children’s problem. It’s your problem now,” said Spencer Weart, a science historian and author of the book “The Discovery of Global Warming.” He is a former director of the American Institute of Physics’ Center for the History of Physics.
“It’s great for Ramanathan to get some of the attention he deserves,” he added.
Ramanathan and others argued that CFCs’ potential for global warming gave reason to restrict production. The 1987 Montreal Protocol eventually banned the use of CFCs, though largely due to intensified scientific and public concern about their impact on health following the discovery in 1985 of a hole in the ozone layer. Without that ban, the world could see additional warming of up to one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), according to a 2021 study in the journal Nature.
The greenhouse effect of CFCs and trace gases was only part of the puzzle. In his long career, Ramanathan used satellites, balloons, drones and ships to directly study the Earth’s atmosphere, confirming with direct observations what climate models had only suggested.
Ramanathan used drones and other tools to measure atmospheric brown clouds, a layer of air pollution. – NASA
His main findings include showing for the first time that clouds have a cooling effect on the planet and understanding how water vapor can amplify the warming effects of carbon dioxide. He also led a project that observed and measured a 3 kilometer (about 2 miles) thick cloud of air pollution that covered much of the Indian subcontinent. His work on atmospheric brown clouds revealed that air pollution masked some of the effects of global warming, a complicated dynamic that scientists are still unraveling today.
Ramanathan became a member of the council of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2012, and has advised three consecutive popes on climate change policy, an experience he said made him consider not only the science but also the ethical implications of the climate crisis, which he emphasized will disproportionately affect the poor.
“His quiet but effective way of communicating was essential in engaging both the research community and decision makers,” said Örjan Gustafsson, professor of biogeochemistry at Stockholm University and member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences who worked with Ramanathan.
“With an eye for the most vulnerable on our planet and an ear for younger researchers, he inspired an entire generation of climate scientists.”
Ramanathan (far left) with Pope Francis and other researchers after a joint workshop of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in 2014 at the Vatican. – Lorenzo Rumors
Ramanathan, now 81, drives a Tesla Model Y (though a red Chevy Impala adorns his mantelpiece) and converted his California home to solar power but stopped walking and taking the bus to work because, he said, it took too long.
He noted that he rarely advises on individual action to combat the climate crisis. Instead, Ramanathan encourages the young people he meets to “stand up and elect the right politicians” and spread the word “using data-based science, not junk.”
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