Sulochana Gadgil is an Indian meteorologist who retired as Professor from the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (CAOS) in Bangalore, India. She has studied the how and why of

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscil ...

, including farming strategies to cope with rainfall variability and modeling ecological and evolutionary phenomena. Her research led to the discovery of a basic feature of the sub-seasonal variation in the monsoon cloud bands. She demonstrated that the monsoon is not a gigantic land-sea breeze but instead is a manifestation of the seasonal migration of a planetary scale system which is seen over non-monsoonal regions as well. In collaboration with the farmers she derived farming strategies which are tailored to the rainfall variability of different regions in India.

Early life and education

She was born in 1944 in

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...

. She hails from a famous genealogical lineage with her great-grandfather being a Minister in the state of Tonk known for his heroic efforts to help the people during the severe droughts. Her grandfather and father were respected physicians of their time. At the same time, her grandfather was a freedom fighter and hosted several active participants of the struggle against colonial rule at his house. Her mother was a Marathi writer. She did her early schooling in Pune, in the

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

medium. She then went on for high-school education in English to Rishi Valley, a boarding school in

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. She came back to Pune for her undergraduate studies at Fergusson College where she opted for

natural sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

and majored in

Chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

and

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

. At this juncture, she became engaged to Madhav Gadgil, a fellow student and together they decided to pursue scientific

career The career is an individual's metaphorical "journey" through learning, work and other aspects of life. There are a number of ways to define career and the term is used in a variety of ways. Definitions The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defin ...

s. They were both admitted with scholarships from

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Return to India

In 1971, she returned to India with her husband, who was also a Harvard scholar. She worked in the

Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) is a scientific institution based in Pune, Maharashtra, India for expanding research in the tropical Indian Ocean with special reference to monsoon meteorology, and air-sea interaction of Sout ...

as a CSIR pool officer for two years. She worked with scientists like R. Ananthakrishnan and D.R Sikka during this period. She was recruited to the Centre for Theoretical Studies (CTS) as a member. Her husband was also recruited to CTS as a mathematical ecologist. Out of this, a new institution, the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (CAOS), was born.

Personal life

She is married to Madhav Gadgil, an ecologist and they have a daughter and a son.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gadgil, Sulochana Living people Indian oceanographers Women meteorologists Indian meteorologists Women oceanographers Indian climatologists Harvard University alumni Savitribai Phule Pune University alumni Scientists from Bangalore Scientists from Maharashtra 20th-century Indian women scientists 21st-century Indian earth scientists Women scientists from Maharashtra 20th-century Indian earth scientists Indian women earth scientists 21st-century Indian women scientists Women climatologists 1944 births