Rengaswamy Ramesh

Rengaswamy Ramesh (1956–2018) was an Indian climatologist, oceanographer, a former Prof. Satish Dhawan Professor at the Physical Research Laboratory and a senior professor at the National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar. He was known for paleo-climatic and paleo-oceanographic studies and was 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 of 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 1998.

Biography

R. Ramesh, born on 2 June 1956 in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, did his graduate studies in physics (1976) at the University of Madras and completed his master's degree at the same university in 1978. and holds the position of a Foundation for GLocal Science Initiatives (FGSI) Outstanding Scientist. In between, he had a short stint at Scripps Institution of Oceanography during 1992–93 as a visiting research associate, working under the guidance of Devendra Lal. He is credited, along with S. K. Bhattacharya and Kunchithapadam Gopalan, with the establishment of a Stable Isotope laboratory for the first time in India. ResearchGate and Google Scholar, two online repositories of scientific articles, have listed 208 and 267 of them respectively. He was one of the lead authors of the book, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, a 1552-page compilation of reports of the Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published by Cambridge University Press in 2014. He has mentored 15 scholars in their doctoral studies who were also trained by him in stable isotope methodology. and the Young Scientist Medal of the Indian National Science Academy reached him in 1987. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, one of the highest Indian science awards in 1998. The Indian Academy of Sciences elected him as its fellow in 1996 TWAS honored him again in 2007 with an elected fellowship. and the address on Oceanic nitrogen cycling: new results based on isotopic tracers of 2013 held at the K.R. Ramanathan Auditorium of the Physical Research Laboratory.

Selected bibliography

Lekshmy, P.R; Midhun, M; Ramesh Rengaswamy (2014). "18O depletion in monsoon rain relates to large scale organized convection rather than the amount of rainfall". Scientific Reports. doi:10.1038/srep05661