The emergent climate scientist who discovered the unexpected force of global warming

Scientist Veerbhadran 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 father, a tire salesman.. Ramanathan moved to the United States at age 20, but never bought his gas guzzler, mainly because his scientific knowledge of global warming quickly eclipsed his income.

Fast-forward to the 1970s and Ramanathan, now a newly minted postdoctoral fellow in planetary science, was spending his days working as a visiting researcher at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and his evenings on a side project hidden from his observers. His lonely night research will change the way scientists look at global warming.

The young scientist discovered that chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which are widely used in the manufacture of refrigerators, air-conditioning units and spray cans, had a significant greenhouse effect. Ramanathan 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 very powerful: one molecule of CFC could have the same warming effect as 10,000 molecules of carbon dioxide. For three months, he repeated the calculations, looking for alternative explanations. He found none.

“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,” Ramanathan recalled.

The journal Science published the findings, and his work made the front page of the New York Times in 1975. The idea that CFCs could possibly be such a powerful force in global warming was met with disbelief, not least from Ramanathan himself, who started the project purely out of curiosity at a time when climate change was not a concern.

Ultimately, Ramanathan established the now widely accepted fact that greenhouse gases other than CO2 are the major contributors to global warming, the first knowledge that is vitally important to successful climate mitigation policy.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Thursday awarded Ramanathan, a distinguished research professor at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the prestigious Crawfurd Prize, a harbinger of Nobel Prizes for some winners.

Ilona Ryppinen, professor of atmospheric sciences at Stockholm University in Sweden and a member of the 80 million Swedish kroner (90,00,000) prize committee, said, “He has expanded our view of how humans are affecting the composition of the atmosphere, climate and air quality, and how all three interact.

Emergent Climate Scientist

Ramanathan, who studied engineering in Bangalore, India before moving to the United States, says his first career success 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 spent an unhappy stint working for a refrigerator company to prevent leaks of cooling agents – CFCs. When he was 26, he moved to the United States and began pursuing a doctoral degree in engineering at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

However, Ramanathan found that his observer unexpectedly changed focus, and his dissertation detailed the greenhouse effect in Venus’s atmosphere. Then, while working at NASA Langley, he encountered the work of scientists Mario Molina and Frank Rowland. Their research showed that CFCs deplete ozone, a natural atmospheric gas that protects people from cancer-causing radiation. (The two later won the Nobel Prize in 1995.) CFCs did not become a matter of widespread public concern until the 1980s.

Before his 1975 research, Ramanathan said he was not the least bit concerned about climate change. However, as he and others expanded the list of trace gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, that contribute to the greenhouse effect, Ramanathan became deeply concerned that global warming would manifest much earlier than the prevailing thought at the time. A paper he co-authored in 1985 concluded that trace gases are as important to long-term global warming as CO2.

“It had a huge impact. The whole climate community woke up and said, ‘Wait a minute. Global warming is coming twice as fast as we thought. It’s not your kids’ problem. It’s your problem,'” said Spencer Wert, historian of science and author of the book “The Discovery of Global Warming.” He is the former director of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics.

He added, “It’s great that Ramanathan is getting the attention he’s getting.”

Ramanathan and others argued that the global warming potential of CFCs warranted a production ban. The 1987 Montreal Protocol finally banned the use of CFCs, albeit largely due to intense scientific and public concern over their health effects after the hole in the ozone layer was discovered. Without that restriction, the world could see an additional warming of up to 1 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 has deployed satellites, balloons, drones and ships to directly study the Earth’s atmosphere, beyond what climate models have suggested.

His key findings show for the first time that clouds have a cooling effect on the planet and how water vapor can amplify the warming effect of carbon dioxide. He also led a project to observe and measure the 3-kilometer (about 2-mile) thick cloud of air pollution covering much of the Indian subcontinent. His work on atmospheric gray clouds revealed that air pollution masked some of the effects of global warming, a complex dynamic that scientists still ignore today.

Ramanathan became a council member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2012, advising three successive popes on climate change policy, an experience he said forced him to consider not only the science but also the moral implications of the climate crisis, which he emphasized would disproportionately affect the poor.

“His calm but effective communication style has been key in engaging both the research community and decision-makers,” said Orjan 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 young researchers, he has inspired an entire generation of climate scientists.”

Ramanathan, now 81, drives a Tesla Model Y (though a red model of the Chevy Impala adorns his mantelpiece) and has converted his California home to solar power, but because he stopped walking and taking the bus to work, he said, it took a long time.

He said he rarely advocates for individual action to combat the climate crisis. Instead, Ramanathan encourages the youth he meets to “stand up and elect the right politicians” and to spread the word “data-based, junk, not science”.

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