India Announces High Altitude Cloud Physics Laboratory to Study AEROSOLS and other Weather Phenomenon

India Announces High Altitude Cloud Physics Laboratory to Study AEROSOLS and other Weather Phenomenon








Ministry of Earth Science24-May, 2012 17:58 IST

High Altitude Cloud Physics Laboratry Opened at Mahabaleshwar (Maharashtra)

Following is the text of the speech of Hon. Minister of Science &
Technology and Earth Sciences Shri Vilasrao Deshmukh at a function to
inaugurate high altitude cloud physics laboratry opened at Mahabaleshwar
(Maharashtra)

“It gives me great pleasure to be associated with the Inauguration and
foundation stone laying ceremony of this High Altitude Cloud Physics
Laboratory, at Mahabaleshwar and I congratulate Dr Shailesh Nayak,
Secretary MoES and Director of IITM, Prof. B. N. Goswami for their
vision of setting up this world class facility to conduct cutting edge
research in the field of Physics and Dynamics of clouds and rain at
Mahabaleshwar. I am particularly happy that our own Mahabaleshwar, a
favorite tourist place also provides a unique location for studying
tropical clouds and rain. We are all familiar with very heavy rainfall
in Mahabaleshwar amounting to more than 500 cm of rain in a year while
only 30 km away, in Mandhar devi there is hardly any rain! We need to
understand what type of clouds bring so much rain over Mahabaleshwar and
why there is almost no rain in Mandhar devi? I am told that such
understanding will help us to improve the skill of prediction of extreme
rain events and droughts. I understand that the Lab will be equipped
with a large number of state of the art equipments to measure all the
microphysical properties of the clouds and rain as well as environmental
conditions such as the aerosols, winds, temperature, humidity etc at
high temporal intervals. I also understand that a meteorological radar
is also being set up at Mandhar devi that will be looking at the clouds
and rain over Mahabaleshwar continuously. I am extremely happy to see
that such a comprehensive plan has been put in place to carry out in
depth study of clouds and rain over this region.
The weather we observe and feel is a product of the atmospheric heat
engine and clouds and rain are fuel for this heat engine. Individual
clouds are generally small in size but get organized into bigger systems
like tropical cyclones and influence the atmospheric heat engine on a
large scale. However, most weather and climate prediction models cannot
resolve each and every cloud. How do we then formulate the effect of
all the clouds in such a model? This is a very big challenge for all
the weather and climate scientists. This they can do if there is a good
understanding of how starting from water vapor condensing around tiny
aerosol particles clouds grow and die in different environments.
However, this understanding is far from complete. Under the guidance and
support from the Ministry of Earth Sciences, IITM Pune has been
conducting a major experiment called Cloud Aerosol Interaction and
Precipitation Enhancement Experiment (CAIPEEX) to study how the aerosols
in the atmosphere influence the cloud formation and rain. Under this
experiment, instrumented aircrafts have been used to go inside the
clouds and make measurements on the cloud properties together with
measuring other environmental parameters. However, using aircrafts
limits the number of sample that one can study. Therefore, it was
necessary to set up a lab where long term continuous measurements of
clouds could be made. For this purpose, we must have a station where
clouds are found at the ground level. Mahabaleshwar immediately became
an ideal choice. Thus, this high altitude cloud physics lab is an
extension of the CAIPEEX and part of long term strategy of IITM for
comprehensive study of clouds and rain. With the CAIPEEX data and
data from this high altitude station for about three years, IITM hopes
to come up with a new and more appropriate formulation of clouds and
rain in weather and climate prediction models leading to tangible
improvement of forecast skills of these models.

The Government of India, through the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES),
is committed to provide improved and reliable weather and climate
services to the society. While the skill of weather and climate
forecasts in most developed countries saw significant improvement during
the past three decades, in India it remained low and static for a long
time. The MoES has taken several land mark initiatives during the past
five years towards improving this situation and the results are
already quite visible. With the implementation of a high resolution
weather forecast model at IMD, the public perception of IMD forecasts
has already shown significant improvement. As weather prediction models
need better input for improving forecasts, MoES has taken a major
program for Modernization of the Observation Network of the India
Meteorology Department (IMD). Advanced supercomputers are also crucial
for making reliable weather and climate forecasts. Although a
supercomputer was installed in NCMRWF, Noida for weather forecasts in
late eighties, this facility did not grow at the required rate. While
the supercomputing capacity grew exponentially in USA, Japan and even
in China, the growth remained very slow in India. MoES took a major
initiative to improve the supercomputing in its Institutions and the
first effort led to a total supercomputing capacity of about 120
teraflops. The 70 teraflop facility at IITM is second largest facility
in the country and put the weather and climate prediction efforts in
India amongst the best in the world. IITM has now operationalized a
dynamical high resolution coupled ocean-atmosphere model to provide
reliable long range prediction of seasonal mean monsoon rainfall. It is
also operationlizing a system to provide reliable forecasts of active
and break spells of monsoon rain fall 2 to 3 weeks in advance. These
computing facilities need to be upgraded regularly. During the 12th
Plan, MoES has made a comprehensive plan to upgrade the supercomputing
facility to 2-3 petaflops and make India a world leader in the field.

The prediction models need to be improved on a continuous basis. This
can be done by improving the input data that goes into the models and
also by improving the models themselves. This requires high end research
and training. Weather and climate prediction models are highly complex
and improvement of skill of prediction is a slow process requiring
involvement of a large pool of experts in a large number of
interdisciplinary fields. The operational weather and climate
forecasting Centres do not generally have enough expert manpower for
this R & D and requires help from the academic community.
Traditionally, however, there is a great disconnect between the academic
community in the country and the operational weather and climate
prediction Centres. Recently, MoES has launched a mission mode project
called ‘Monsoon Mission’ to improve the skill of weather and climate
prediction systems by forging partnerships between the Academic
community and the operational weather and climate prediction community.
Such partners will be encouraged to take up specific projects on
improving aspects of the operational prediction systems. The partnership
will not be limited only to Indian partners, it will be opened up to
some international partners as well.

As such trained manpower in this field is limited in our country, a
comprehensive program to build R & D manpower in the field of
Weather and Climate prediction is also essential. It has always been
difficult to attract best of the students to take up a career in this
field in particular and Earth Sciences in general. To improve this
situation MoES has started a job linked Training program at IITM under
the Centre for Advanced Training for Earth System Science and Climate.
Under this Program 20-60 Trainees are inducted every year and after one
year of rigorous Training and six months of a Project in the Earth
System Science and Climate, they are inducted to jobs in one of the
Institutions under MoES. The first batch of this Training is completing
its first year by June 2012 and the second batch is expected to join in
July. The most satisfying aspect of this new initiative is that top
students in Science as well as in Engineering are opting for this
Program. These Trainees will continue with their Ph.D programs while in
job and will certainly give a quantum jump in quality of research in
the country in the field of Weather and Climate.

The High Altitude Cloud Physics Laboratory being set up by IITM is an
example of India’s resolve that we shall not just follow the developed
Nations but come up with new ideas and set up best scientific
infrastructure and be leader in the field. My best wishes are with IITM
and MoES to fully succeed in this endeavor”.


Source:-
http://aircrap.org/india-announces-high-altitude-cloud-physics-laboratory-study-aerosols-other-weather-phenomenon/334603/



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