September 25th, 2013
GFDL’s Director, Ram, has been selected as the second Sir Gilbert Walker Distinguished Chair Professor at the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, India, for three years. Beginning this November, Ram will give a series of special lectures in Climate Sciences to graduate students at IIT each semester.
The endowment covers all expenses, as well as a research grant that students can expend for research based on the lectures and interactions with the Chair. The purpose of this Chair is to benefit IIT graduate students by appointing a distinguished scientist of international repute for a period of 3-5 years.
This Chair is named for the British mathematician best known for his groundbreaking description of the east-west atmospheric circulation in the equatorial Pacific, now called “Walker circulation”, a climate phenomenon of profound significance. While he was Director-General of Observatories in India during the early 1900s, Sir Walker published the first characterization of the important oscillation of atmospheric pressure between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and its correlation to temperature and rainfall patterns across much of the Earth’s tropical regions.
Ram was chosen on the basis of his outstanding research record, including his work to elucidate the role of aerosols and greenhouse gases in climate change in the Indian region, which involves changes in the Walker circulation.