India to set up regional climate centre for Himalayas

India is planning to establish a regional climate centre for the Himalayan mountain region which will not only provide weather-related advice within the country but also to its neighbours, India Meteorological Department (IMD) Director General Mrutunjay Mohapatra said on Monday.

Mohapatra said the work for establishing such a centre has already begun and talks are also on with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

Key Highlights

• Addressing a webinar on ‘Weather and Climate Services over Mountains Region’, Mohapatra said India has the eastern ghats, western ghats along the east and the west coast and the Myanmar hills in the northeast.

• Considering the size of the Himalayas and its role in India’s hydrology, meteorology, disaster management, ecosystem and many other activities, the world has correctly recognised it as the ‘third pole of the world’, he noted.

• As a part of the ecosystem, as a part of the land, ocean, atmosphere system, the mountains, including the Himalayas and all other hill ranges play a significant role, Mohapatra stressed.

• Being a data-sparse region, the relative observational network is limited as compared to the plain ranges of the country, Mohapatra observed.

• He said there is a scope to improve further the physical understanding of various processes occurring in these mountain regions, their modelling and hence the forecasting and warning services.

• The RCC is likely to come up in Delhi, Mohapatra later said. The RCC will provide weather-related services especially for the farmers and tribes residing there.

• He added that Himansh, the country’s remote and high altitude research centre, established in 2016, will also undertake weather research activities in the Himalayas.

• Mohapatra said a lot of initiatives have been taken by the Ministry of Earth Sciences and IMD for augmentation of observational network with the deployment of doppler radars and automated weather stations and with the development of region-specific numerical models and application activities with improvement in forecast activities and warning services.

SOURCE: The Hindu

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