NRI Virbhadran Ramanathan, Scientist, wins Crawford Prize 2026

Los Angeles/Feb 03, 2026
NRIpress.club/Ramesh/ A.Gary Singh

NRI Virbhadran Ramanathan, climate scientist, has been awarded the 2026 Crawford Prize in Geosciences by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The prestigious award, often compared to the Nobel Prize in areas not covered by it, recognizes his significant research on climate pollutants and their impact on global warming.Prize money: 8 million Swedish kronor (about 900,000 US dollars)

• Citation: For fundamental contributions to our understanding of how aerosol particles and other climate pollutants affect the atmospheric energy balance and the Earth system.
• Virabhadran Ramanathan was born in 1944, Chennai (formerly Madras), India
• Bachelor in Engineering, Annamalai University
• Master, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore
• Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science, State University of New York, 1974
• Worked for a refrigeration company in Secunderabad, India, handling chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
• Joined NASA in the 1970s, where he discovered that CFCs trap heat thousands of times more effectively than CO₂
• Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
• Leading research on short-lived climate pollutants such as black carbon and methane
• Led the Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX), which revealed the impact of atmospheric brown clouds on climate
• Played a key role in shaping international climate policies, including the Montreal Protocol
• Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences since 2004
• Advised Pope Francis on climate change, including in the encyclical Laudato Si Contributed
• Grande Medaille, Académie des Sciences (2024)
• Tang Prize for Sustainable Development (2018)
• BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2015)
• Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal (2002)
• Elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2002)