Brief Summary of the Indo-US Workshop

on

Weather and Climate Modelling

under the Aegis of Indo-US S&T Forum held during 7-9^th February 2002 at New Delhi

Understanding and predicting weather and climate is truly a global issue that needs to be addressed with utmost earnestness. Severe weather events, heavy rain, tropical cyclones and vagaries of monsoon affect the societies significantly world over. Amongst all the monsoons of the world, the Indian monsoon has largest spatial extent and it affects not only the economy of India but also of adjoining countries and is known to have significant linkage with the global weather and unanticipated changes in the sea state. Thus, prediction of the various facets of monsoon and the associated rains is a challenging task and of considerable interest for the scientists. It is well known that, to date, none of the numerical models in the world could simulate the Asian monsoon and the associated rainfall especially over India. It remains a challenge to all scientists for developing and improving models for finally obtaining societal beneficial forecasts. Tropical cyclones (Hurricanes) are the other phenomena that nucleate in the sea and migrate to the littoral regions, claiming thousands of lives and causing immense damage of properties each year. Episodes of heavy precipitation over localised areas associated with cyclones are of concern to all. These disasters cannot be prevented but a skilful forewarning could substantially reduce the loss of lives and economic impact on the affected countries. An effective forewarning could be achieved by improved forecasts through numerical modelling through joint efforts of scientists from both the countries. Considerable developments have taken place in the recent times in the availability of high power computers, communication facilities and observing techniques. It is time to make concerted efforts to transfer these developments to real life for the benefit of the society. US atmospheric modelling community has remained on the vanguard of model development. Indian scientific community has also shown great interest in global modelling application. India is perhaps the only country in the tropics, which runs a global model on daily basis to issue Medium Range Weather Forecast. Forecasting daily weather in the monsoon area is a tough task and much remains to be done to improve the accuracy of forecast in different spatial/ temporal scales.

Recently, Indo-US Science and Technology Forum have been set up to strengthen and facilitate joint work and cooperation between the scientific communities of both the countries. The aim is to gain from each other’s experience and work towards mutual benefit and common goal. Weather and Climate Modelling has been perceived as a priority area of collaboration under the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum.

A workshop on ‘Weather and Climate Modelling’ was organised in New Delhi during 7-9^th February 2002 under the aegis of S&T Forum that provided a platform where scientists involved in the areas of weather and climate modelling from both India and USA met, exchanged views and shared their experiences. The workshop was coordinated by Dr. S.V. Singh, Head, National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), DST, India and Dr. B.B. Rath of the Naval Research Laboratory, USA. Twelve scientists of repute from USA belonging to six major establishments like NOAA, National Centres for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and Universities like Florida State University (FSU), University of Maryland and North Carolina State University (NCSU) participated in the deliberations. From India, scientists from various leading organisations like India Meteorological Department (IMD), NCMRWF, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), ISRO (Space Application Centre) and Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi and Roorkee) participated apart from representatives from user community like Indian Air force, Naval Headquarters, Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) and Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA). In addition, several faculty members from various universities including thirty research scholars who are pursuing their research in the related field attended and participated in the workshop. There were about 120 delegates in all who participated in the workshop.

Dr. Panjab Singh, Director General ICAR and Secretary, DARE inaugurated the program. Prof. V.S. Ramamurthy, Secretary, DST and Co-chairman Indo-US Forum delivered the presidential address. Dr. Hua Lu Pan, of NOAA, USA, delivered the Keynote address.

There were eleven presentations from the US scientists and ten presentations from the Indian scientists. After presentations by the scientists from both the countries under different themes, group discussions were held, led by theme leaders to select specific topics of collaboration. At the end of these discussions, several topics of mutual interest were identified and presented by the theme leaders.

The various proposals under the three themes are enlisted in Annexure I, II and III in the form as presented by the theme leaders. Collaboration on Theme I which basically encompasses the issues related to global modelling system are mostly confined to the two operational centres from both the countries viz. NCMRWF from India and EMC (Environmental Modelling Centre) of NCEP from USA. There is a need to exchange experiences and there is a need of regular interactions among the scientists of the two Centres. It is important to share views regarding changes made in the analysis-forecast system that affects the prediction capabilities and performance of the operational models. Theme 2 summarises two broad projects for Collaboration on Mesoscale Modelling namely I) Mesoscale dynamics and ii) Representation of Physical Processes. Theme 3 indicates specific projects with their objectives.

Dr. S.V. Singh

( India Coordinator)

Dr. B.B. Rath

(US Coordinator)