Indian meteorological department perfects weather prediction

Pune, Apr 8 (ANI): The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) generates and collects scientific knowledge about meteorology and atmospheric sciences.

It functions as a national centre for basic and applied research in monsoon meteorology.

Indian climate and weather has experienced drastic changes. Fatal weather events like severe thunderstorms, cyclones, flash floods and snow avalanches need prior information.

But predictions for such radical weather events are most difficult to forecast. Monsoon prediction is important, forecast of total seasonal rainfall is necessary.

Meteorological department play a significant role to understand such erratic weather conditions and to give predictions about them beforehand.The IITM is one such premiere research institute in Pune. It generates and collects scientific knowledge about meteorology and atmospheric sciences. It functions as a national centre for basic and applied research in monsoon meteorology.

"The IITM is an autonomous institution under the Ministry of Arts Sciences. It has been started with very important decision by Indian Met Department in 1962, to set up a separate wing to do basic research required for improving the forecast of weather and climate", said Prof. B N Goswami, Director, IITM.

IITM scientists have done new findings, which have received attention of the national and international scientific community.

IITM have made contribution to the international programmes such as the Worldlimate research Program (WCRP), the International Geosphere - Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and others.

According to the director, IITM has been conducting various fundamental researches to improve the forecast of both weather and climate. Most of the research is largely on climate.

The IITM has been instrumental in finding important predictors for seasonal mean monsoon, which has been used by the IMD over years.

The IITM has also developed 'regional climate model', which is capable of predicting monsoons towards the end of the century, where monsoons are expected to intensify to five to ten per cent.

"We know temperature over Indian region has been increasing as shown in the figure over the last 100 years, but monsoon rainfall is not increasing. Total quantum of rainfall over last 100 years is quite steady. This was a bit of a puzzle for long time and over the last few years, we have done study that while the mean monsoon is not changing, but distribution of rainfall is changing," said Goswami.

The IITM plans to widen its scope and research activities for providing information relating to various aspects of atmosphere. By Shivaji (ANI)