Krishna AchutaRao, the renowned climate scientist and a professor at IIT Delhi’s Centre for Atmospheric Sciences (CAS), died on September 4, aged 62.
AchutaRao’s research helped strengthen the science of climate attribution, distinguishing climate change related events from ordinary ones. His sustained focus on the influence of anthropogenic forces over climate systems has helped put their regional impacts into focus.
AchutaRao has been associated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 2001, rising to become a contributing author to the seminal reports in its fifth and sixth editions. He also helped set up IIT’s Centre of Excellence for Climate Change Adaptation, which developed an expertise in climate risk assessments and adaptation planning for heat extremes, monsoon variability, and other hazards affecting vulnerable communities in India.
But apart from his scientific contributions, AchutaRao was also an advocate of raising awareness about climate change. He engaged with the media often to explain the importance of limiting global heating, and spoke of how its uneven impacts on the developing world could affect people, institutions, and countries.
“This is a very critical time in our history, because we are a developing country poised to take off. Most of our development is yet to happen, in spite of what you might see,” he said in an interview to an IIT student in 2020. “So in that development, how are we going to make sure we don’t make the same high emission mistakes the rest of the developed world has made? There is a role here to make sure you are not compromising one thing because you’re looking for another thing,” he added.
After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a master’s in Mathematics from BITS Pilani in 1986, AchutaRao went to the United States to pursue a second master’s and PhD in Engineering from Tulane University in New Orleans, U.S.A. He returned to India in 2007, after working at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and stayed with the
Centre for Atmospheric Sciences (CAS), Indian Institute of Technology Delhi ever since.
“IIT Delhi is deeply saddened by the demise of Prof. Krishna AchutaRao…Prof. AchutaRao served at the Institute for about two decades and held various positions of responsibility, including Dean (Faculty) and Head, CAS,” the Institute said in a statement.
His loss is mourned by the climate science community. “What brought me closer to him was his keen scientific temper, his extraordinary attention to detail, and above all, his sense of humour. We will miss him deeply,” said Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune in a social media post.
Banner image: Krishna AchutaRao. Images via Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
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