25-07-2025
Prof Sulochana Gadgil, who knew the ‘how' and ‘why' of Indian monsoons, passes away at 81
Mathematician-turned-meteorologist Professor Sulochana Gadgil passed away in Bengaluru late Thursday evening following a prolonged illness. She was 81.
Born in Pune in 1944, Sulochana Gadgil, the third among four daughters, completed her primary schooling and graduate studies in Pune. She is an alumnus of Ferguson College, where she met her future husband, Professor Madhav Gadgil, an acclaimed ecologist and expert on the Western Ghats.
She studied Applied Mathematics at the University of Pune, around the time she was engaged to Madhav.
Soon, the Gadgils bagged a scholarship to study at Harvard University. Her interest in the Indian monsoon blossomed after her PhD, following which she pursued a one-year postdoctoral degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) under Professor Jules Charney.
The Gadgils returned to India in 1971. Sulochana worked at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune for two years. Her resolve to understand the complexities of the Indian monsoon only grew stronger.
Later, her career took deeper roots at the Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). In later years, her research interest also branched to ecology and evolutionary biology.
She remained one of the leading Indian scientists, renowned globally for her in-depth studies of the monsoons. Her research helped establish that the Indian summer monsoon was a seasonal migration of planetary-scale systems, and the seasonal rainfall variability was linked to the cloud systems prevailing over the equatorial Indian Ocean.
She is a fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore.
She is survived by her husband, son, daughter, and their families. Her mortal remains will be kept at the house of her son, Siddharth Gadgil, at IISc. Her last rites will be performed in the afternoon.
