Accurate regional climate models must to understand climate chan

New Delhi, Sept 19 (UNI) The unanimously accepted fact of climate change requires more accuracy in regional climate models to understand the whole phenomena.

That was by and large unanimous view of experts at a High level Stakeholders discussion in TERI on future needs of climate modeling in India.

A detail concept of the workshop and TERI strength on climate modelling was addressed by Dr. Pradhan Parth Sarthi, Associate Fellow.

He said climate changes observed over the last several decades were mostly due to human activities, but significant change was also a reflection of natural variability of the climate system.

''Therefore a very high-resolution ocean coupled atmospheric global climate model is required to understand the impact of natural variability on climate system,'' he said.

Dr Sarthi emphasised on the need of more studies by using regional climate model.

Earlier, Dr Pradipto Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow, TERI and former Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Forest, said in his opening remarks that major issues like availability of weather and climate data, atmospheric ocean general circulation modelling(GCM), regional climate modelling (RCM) and computer grid establishment/high performance computing etc need to be discussed so that India arms itself with the capability of having state-of-the-art climate modelling mechanisms.

The projected climate change under various scenarios is likely to have large implications on food production, water supply, biodiversity and livelihoods. Thus, it would require careful analysis of IPCC AR4 data especially on state level to improve our scientific understanding on regional climate change" said Dr D.R.

Sikka, former director of IITM, Pune and an eminent weather and climate scientist.

"Climate change is a fast emerging science in recent times, therefore there must be a clear understanding of climate system" said Prof. S. K. Dash, IIT Delhi. He cited the several challenges of climate science in India in next 10 years and also the need of high performance computing for climate modeling.

The present modeling strength of NCMRWF and several issues on future of climate modelling in the country was highlighted by Dr. A.

K. Bohra, Director, NCMRWF, Noida.

"The high resolution weather and climate data are highly required" said Dr. R. C. Bhatia, DG, IMD.

The workshop also had distinguished experts from across the country such as Prof. Ravi Nanjundiah (IISc, Bangalore), Prof. P.S Dhenke (BARC, Bombay), Dr. P. Goswami (CMMACS, Bangalore ) and Dr.

Radhika, ISRO, expressing their expert views on present capabilities and future needs of climate modelling in the country .

At the end of the session, held on Monday, Dr Ghosh, said a report would be prepared to propose policy measures and a plan of action for setting up a network for development of GCM/RCM, availability of weather and climate data and their sources.

UNI