Dr Chirag Dhara is a quantum physicist turned climate scientist holding two doctorates: one in Earth System Science (2017) from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and University of Hamburg, Germany and the other in Photonics (2013) from the Institute of Photonic Sciences and Universitat Polytecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain.
Prior to joining Krea University, he spent two years as a Research Associate at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM). He co-authored India’s first comprehensive climate change assessment report released by IITM in June, 2020 (as an official report of the Ministry of Earth Science, India). He is also a contributing author to the IPCC AR6 report (2021).
In 2018-2019, he freelanced for Firstpost, a digital news portal, writing on climate change science and impacts.
The escalating climate and ecological crises are increasingly posing an existential threat to life on Earth. The roots of these problems are profligate resource exploitation and pollution that are inherent to the prevailing economic system that prioritises growth at all costs. It is these issues that Dr Dhara’s work focuses on.
One of Dr Dhara’s areas of work is climate science, specifically atmospheric thermodynamics and radiation, climate and hydrologic sensitivity, and the impact of aerosols (air pollution) on global and regional precipitation and near-term climate change projections.
His other major area of work is sustainability. Specifically, the development-sustainability conundrum, the role of technology towards sustainability and the energy transition.
Main Research Discipline: Climate science, sustainability science
Specific Research Area: The effect of anthropogenic aerosols on global and regional precipitation; sustainability of development
Journal publications
- Dhara, C., Sooraj, K.P., Pathaikara A., Terray, P. (2022). “Near Future Response Of Global Mean Precipitation Dominated By Aerosol Radiative Forcing”. Submitted to Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
- Bhar, S., and Dhara, C. (2022). “Developmental Trajectories of Nations Based on Equity, Historic Responsibility, and Planetary Boundaries,”. Preprint SocArXiv: https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/8qcxm. Submitted to Global Sustainability.
- Dhara, C., Krishnan, R. (2021), Advancing South Asian monsoon climate change projections: Challenges and Opportunities, Forthcoming.
- Dhara, C. (2020), Constraining Global Changes in Temperature and Precipitation From Observable Changes in Surface Radiative Heating, Geophysical Research Letters, 47(9).
- Dhara, C., Renner, M. and Kleidon, A. (2016), Broad climatological variation of surface energy balance partitioning across land and ocean predicted from the maximum power limit, Geophysical Research Letters, 43(14).
- G. de la Torre, M. Hoban, C. Dhara, G. Prettico and A. Acin (2015), Maximally nonlocal theories cannot be maximally random, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 160502.
- C. Dhara, G. de la Torre and A. Acin (2014), Can observed randomness be certified to be fully intrinsic?, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 100402.
- C. Dhara, G. Prettico and A. Acin (2013), Maximal quantum randomness in Bell tests, Phys. Rev. A 88, 052116.
- R.Gallego, L.Masanes, G.delaTorre, C.Dhara, L.Aolita and A.Acin (2013),Full randomness from arbitrarily deterministic events, Nature Communications 4:2654.
- C. Dhara, L. Masanes, S. Pironio, A. Acin (2011), Security of device-independent quantum key distribution protocols, Proc. of Theory of Quantum Computation, Communication and Cryptography 2011.
- L. Aolita, D. Cavalcanti, R. Chavez, C. Dhara, L. Davidovich, A. Acin (2010), Noisy evolution of graph-state entanglement, Phys. Rev. A 82, 032317.
- C. Dhara, and N.D. Hari Dass (2005), Optimal measurements and fixed-point maps, Physical Review A 72, 024102.
Book chapters
- Singh, Manmeet; Dhara, Chirag; Kumar, Adarsh; Singh Gill, Sukhpal, and Uhlig, Steve (2022). “Quantum Artificial Intelligence for the Science of Climate Change”. In: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Blockchain in Quantum Satellite, Drone and Network [Thiruselvan Subramanian, Archana Dhyani, Adarsh Kumar, Sukhpal Singh Gill (Eds.)]. Taylor & Francis Group. Accepted.
- Dhara, C., and Singh, V. (2021). “The Elephant in the Room: Why Transformative Education Must Address the Problem of Endless Exponential Economic Growth.” In: Curriculum and Learning for Climate Action: Toward an SDG 4.7 Roadmap for Systems Change [R. Iyengar, C. Kwauk (Eds.)]. Brill, 2021. https://brill.com/view/book/9789004471818/BP000021.xml.
- Krishnan, R., Dhara C. (Drafting author) (2020). Executive Summary. In: Krishnan R., Sanjay J., Gnanaseelan C., Mujumdar M., Kulkarni A., Chakraborty S. (eds) Assessment of Climate Change over the Indian Region. Springer, Singapore
- Roxy M.K., C. Gnanaseelan, …, Dhara C. (Lead author) (2020). Indian Ocean Warming. In: Krishnan R., Sanjay J., Gnanaseelan C., Mujumdar M., Kulkarni A., Chakraborty S. (eds) Assessment of Climate Change over the Indian Region. Springer, Singapore
- Dhara C. (Coordinating Lead Author), Krishnan R., Niyogi D. (2020). Possible Climate Change Impacts and Policy-Relevant Messages. In: Krishnan R., Sanjay J., Gnanaseelan C., Mujumdar M., Kulkarni A., Chakraborty S. (eds) Assessment of Climate Change over the Indian Region. Springer, Singapore
- Krishnan R., C. Gnanaseelan, … Dhara C. (Coordinating Lead Author), … R. Mehajan (2020). Introduction to Climate Change Over the Indian Region. In: Krishnan R., Sanjay J., Gnanaseelan C., Mujumdar M., Kulkarni A., Chakraborty S. (eds) Assessment of Climate Change over the Indian Region. Springer, Singapore
Media
- With Roxy Mathew Koll: How and Why India’s Climate will Change in the Coming Decades (August 2020), The India Forum.
- The Delusion of Infinite Economic Growth (June 2020), Scientific American.
- What the exponential growth of COVID-19 helps us learn about another blind spot or two (April 2020), The Hindu.
4. Cleaning India’s air pollution – damned if we don’t, damned if we do? (June 2019), Firstpost
- Is Cyclone Fani a result of global warming? (May 2019), Firstpost
- West Bengal’s climate change conundrum Part V: Erratic seasons exacerbating physiological, psychosomatic problems in human beings (Feb 2019), Firstpost.
- West Bengal’s climate change conundrum Part IV: How intensifying cyclones threaten Sundarbans’ way of life (Feb 2019), Firstpost.
- West Bengal’s climate change conundrum Part III: Extraordinarily rapid sea-level rise in Sundarbans turns families into refugees (Feb 2019), Firstpost.
- West Bengal’s climate change conundrum Part II:Changing rainfall patterns have left Kolkata vulnerable to flooding; here’s why (Feb 2019), Firstpost.
- West Bengal’s climate change conundrum: Why Kolkata is more heat-stressed than other megacities (Feb 2019), Firstpost
- Why does a difference 0.5C in global warming leads to disproportionately larger impacts? (Oct 2018), Firstpost
- What makes India so vulnerable to climate change? (Oct 2018), Firstpost
- The challenge of emissions reduction (Oct 2018), Firstpost.
- The Climate Solution: Book review (July 2018), Firstpost.
Panelist, or cited in
- Should we really aim for sustainable development?, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Panelist on Podcast.
- In conversation with climatologist Chirag Dhara I How Climate Change works I India’s first official climate change assessment, Mint Climate Change Tracker. Panelist on Podcast.
- City’s first urban forest turns into a dump yard, Times of India.
- India: COVID, climate change pushing Sundarbans women to distress, Al Jazeera.
- Explained: Why Many Parts Of India Are Experiencing Heat Wave In The Month Of March, Indiatimes News.
- As India’s Ghoramara island shrinks, so do residents’ hope for the future, SCMP.
- Pune: ‘Impact of climate change on people depends on where one lives or works,’ say panelists, Indian Express.
- Make nature an election agenda in the 2019 polls, Hindustan Times.
