Pisharoth Rama Pisharoty

Pisharoth Rama Pisharoty was an Indian physicist and meteorologist, and is considered to be the father of remote sensing in IndiaP R Pisharoty was born on February 10, 1909 in the town of Kollengode in the Indian state of KeralaHis parents were Sivaramakrishnan alias Gopala Vadhyar and Lakshmi Pisharassiar He had two brothers: Balakrishnan and Rajagopal, and three half brothers: Vaidyanathan, Rose Vadhyar and Gopalakrishnan He completed his early education in Kerala Having done his Physics BA honours from St Josephs College, Trichinopoly, Madras state, he went on to do his MA (Physics) from Madras University He then worked as a college lecturer in Physics at Loyola College at Chennai during 19321941 During the summer vacations he used to work under Prof C V Raman at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore On the recommendation of Raman, Pisharoty joined the India Meteorological Department in 1942, where he carried out research on thunderstorms, western disturbances, movement of monsoon depressions, orographic rain, etc He then joined the University of California for further studies where he worked under meteorologist Jacob Bjerknes His published two reports titled Some aspects of geostrophic poleward sensible heat and The kinetic energy of the atmosphere He obtained his MS (in Meteorology) and PhD degrees by 1954