Vimal Mishra is an academic, researcher and climate scientist. He is a Vikram Sarabhai Chair Professor at the

Indian Institute of Technology The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) are a network of engineering and technology institutions in India. Established in 1950, they are under the purview of the Ministry of Education of the Indian Government and are governed by the Instit ...

Gandhinagar, India. His research focuses on

Climate variability and change Climate variability includes all the variations in the climate that last longer than individual weather events, whereas the term climate change only refers to those variations that persist for a longer period of time, typically decades or more ...

, land-atmospheric interactions, land surface

hydrological modelling A hydrologic model is a simplification of a real-world system (e.g., surface water, soil water, wetland, groundwater, estuary) that aids in understanding, predicting, and managing water resources. Both the flow and quality of water are commonly stu ...

, operational hydrology to monitor and predict hydrologic extremes, and hydroclimatic extremes and their physical understanding (droughts, floods, and heatwaves). For his research work, he was awarded

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize Shanti or Shanthi may refer to: In Sanskrit * Inner peace, a state of being mentally and spiritually at peace, with enough knowledge and understanding to keep oneself strong in the face of discord or stress * Kshanti, one of the paramitas of B ...

, in 2022 by the

Council of Scientific & Industrial Research The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR; IAST: ''vaigyanik tathā audyogik anusandhāna pariṣada'') is a research and development (R&D) organisation in India to promote scientific, industrial and economic growth. Headquartere ...

, India. He was the sole awardee in the Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean, and Planetary Sciences category in 2022 for this prize.

Education

Mishra completed his bachelor's in technology in Agricultural Engineering from

Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture & Technology (CSAUA&T) is an agricultural university at Kanpur in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is named after the Indian revolutionary Chandrashekhar Azad. Besides Kanpur, it also has cons ...

, Kanpur, followed by master's in technology from

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur The Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur or IIT-KGP) is a public institute of technology, research university, and autonomous institute established by the Government of India in Kharagpur, West Bengal. Founded in 1951, the in ...

. He completed his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

, West Lafayette, USA. His dissertation title was “Understanding impacts of historic climate variability and climate change on lakes in the Great Lakes Region.”

Career

He started his career as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the

University of Washington-Seattle The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Unite ...

, Washington where he served for two years. Coming back to India, he joined as an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar. He is currently serving as a Vikram Sarabhai Chair Professor, lead researcher at IIT Gandhinagar. Mishra is a Fellow of

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, Atmospheric science, atmospheric, Oceanography, ocean, Hydrology, hydrologic, Astronomy, space, and Planetary science, planetary scientists and enthusiasts that ...

(AGU), Fellow of

Indian Academy of Sciences The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore was founded by Indian Physicist and List of Nobel laureates, Nobel Laureate Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, C. V. Raman, and was registered as a society on 27 April 1934. Inaugurated on 31 July 1934, it ...

, The

National Academy of Sciences, India The National Academy of Sciences, India, also known as NASI, was established in 1930 and is the oldest science academy of India. It is located in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. Prof. Meghnad Saha was the founder president. Fellows * Suddhasatwa Bas ...

(NASI), Indian Meteorological Society (IMS), a member of other reputed organizations and committees. Mishra's lab at IITGN is reported to make a significant contribution to developing real-time monitoring and prediction systems for droughts and floods in India. He is credited with developing and transferring an operational platform for real-time monitoring and forecasting of land surface

hydrology Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and drainage basin sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is called a hydro ...

products to the

India Meteorological Department India Meteorological Department (IMD) is an Indian agency of the Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Government of India. It is the principal agency responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasting and seismology. IMD is headquar ...

(IMD). The India Drought Monitor, a platform he developed, provides real-time information and forecasts on drought. A study conducted by him and his team on “Drought and Famine in India, 1870–2016”, published in the

Geophysical Research Letters ''Geophysical Research Letters'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal of geoscience published by the American Geophysical Union that was established in 1974. The editor-in-chief iKristopher Karnauskas Aims and scope The journal aims for ...

Journal, provided scientific backing for the argument that

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

's policies played a significant role in contributing to the 1943 catastrophe, The Bengal famine, that claimed 3 million Indian lives. He is also a lead author for India's Climate Research Agenda: 2030 and beyond. He was a contributing author of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to "provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies". The World Met ...

(

IPCC The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to "provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies". The World M ...

). He served as an expert in the Scoping Meeting of IPCC AR7. He is on editorial board as an editor, associate editor of various journals such as Earth's Future ( AGU),

Scientific Data Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted formally ...

(

Nature Publishing Group Nature Portfolio (formerly known as Nature Publishing Group and Nature Research) is a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals, magazines, online databases, and services in scien ...

Journal of Hydrology ''Journal of Hydrology'' () is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Elsevier Elsevier ( ) is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The ...

Frontiers in Earth Science Frontiers Media SA is a publisher of peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine. It was founded in 2007 by Kamila and Henry Markram. Frontiers is based in Lausanne, Switzerland, with of ...

s, Frontiers in Climate, Remote Sensing of Earth Systems Science (

Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

), and other reputed journals with high impact factor.

Awards

He received

for his contributions in 2022. American Geophysical Union (AGU) Devendra Lal Memorial Medal for his research and contributions to Earth Sciences.

Publications

He has over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles, published in reputed journals such as Nature Geoscience, Water Resources Research, Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, Journal of Geophysical Research, Earth's Future, Environmental Research Letters, and other leading journals. Some of the journal articles are as follows: * Asoka, A., Gleeson, T., Wada, Y., & Mishra, V. (2017). Relative contribution of monsoon precipitation and pumping to changes in groundwater storage in India. Nature Geoscience, 10(2), 109–117. doi:10.1038/ngeo28699 * Mishra, V., Ambika, A. K., Asoka, A., Aadhar, S., Buzan, J., Kumar, R., & Huber, M. (2020). Moist heat stress extremes in India enhanced by irrigation. Nature Geoscience, 13(11), 722–728. doi:10.1038/s41561-020-00650-8 * Shah, D., & Mishra, V. (2020b). Integrated Drought Index (IDI) for Drought Monitoring and Assessment in India. Water Resources Research, 56(2), e2019WR026284 doi:10.1029/2019WR026284 * Shah, R. D., & Mishra, V. (2015a). Development of an experimental near-real-time drought monitor for India. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 16(1), 327–345. doi:10.1175/JHM-D-14-0041.1 * Nanditha, J., & Mishra, V. (2022a). Multiday precipitation is a prominent driver of floods in Indian river basins. Water Resources Research, 58(7), e2022WR032723. doi:10.1029/2022WR03272

References

External links

*
Water and Climate Lab, IIT Gandhinagar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mishra, Vimal Fellows of the American Geophysical Union Indian climatologists Purdue University alumni IIT Kharagpur alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people