Climate Scientist Krishna AchutaRao Passes Away at 62

Krishna AchutaRao, a prominent climate scientist and professor at the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, passed away on September 4, 2026. He was 62.

AchutaRao's research focused on quantifying the human contribution to observed climate change. His collaborative studies demonstrated detectable human influence on temperature changes across Indian sub-regions, helping bridge global climate science with regional risks facing India.

Colleagues remembered him as a warm, principled scientist. Roxy Mathew Koll, climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, called his passing "a major loss to Indian climate science" and recalled AchutaRao as a "clear and principled critic whenever scientific temper was compromised."

Madhavan Rajeevan, former Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, noted AchutaRao's recent work on attribution of extreme events like heat waves and his application of AI tools in climate and monsoon research.

AchutaRao spent two decades at IIT Delhi, serving as Head of the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences and Dean (Faculty). He helped establish the institute's Centre of Excellence for Climate Change Adaptation. Before returning to India in 2007, he worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison in the U.S.

He was also a member of the World Climate Research Programme's Joint Scientific Committee from 2025.

Dileepkumar R., a former Ph.D. student under AchutaRao, described him as "a man of great integrity, a genuinely kind soul, an exceptional scientist, and a person with a deep commitment to society."