During 2016, many significant
achievements have been made on providing weather and climate services.
Many observational campaigns have been taken up as special atmospheric
observations help us to understand model deficiencies and to improve the
models. To address the issue of better measurement and understanding of small-scale processes
that drive the variability, seasonality and predictability in the South
Asian Monsoon, a large-scale joint India-UK observational campaign was
carried out during the period June-July 2016. The campaign involved the deployment of UK’s
BAe-146-301 atmospheric research aircraft with sophisticated scientific
instruments and India’s Sagar Nidhi and Sindhu Sadhna research ships. An
observational campaign to understand different physical features of Fog
and factors responsible for its genesis, intensity and duration was
initiated during December 2016 at the Indira Gandhi International
Airport (IGIA) and at ICAR-IARI in New Delhi. These observations will be
useful for improving model forecasts.
(a) (b)
(a) Dr Harsh Vardhan, Dr Alexander
Evans and UK & Indian scientists with the Research Aircraft to study
monsoon variability. (b) Tether Sonde Balloon Observations up to 1000 m were taken during 3 to 23 January, 2016.
A
high resolution global deterministic weather prediction model has been
commissioned for generating operational weather forecasts at a
horizontal resolution of 12km. With this, MoES has attained the same
capability as in USA in using high resolution weather prediction models.
Many major improvements have been made in data assimilation for the
ingestion of data from the Indian and International satellites in
numerical models.
Under
the Monsoon Mission, operational dynamical model systems have been
implemented for extended range and seasonal forecasts. For the first
time, forecasts on different time scales during the hot weather season
(April to May) including heat waves were issued by the India
Meteorological Department.
The
Climate Centre at IMD Pune has been now recognized as the Regional
Climate Centre by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) for
providing regional climate services. A State-of-the-art Earth System
Model(ESM) has been implemented to study the climate change aspects and
develop future regional climate change scenarios at 25 km resolution and
conduct climate impact assessment studies. The ESM will be the first
climate model from India to contribute to the forthcoming sixth IPCC
climate change assessment process.
The
quality of weather services saw noticeable improvements achieved in
skills of Heavy Rainfall Forecasts and tropical cyclone forecasts.
Presently around 19.5 C million farmers are being directly benefitted by
the agro-meteorological services of IMD. For the recent cyclone Vardah,
accurate predictions were provided almost 3 days in advance, helping to
save thousands of lives.
The Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) monitored 29 earthquakes of magnitude ≥ 6.5 MW during the period 1 January - 31 October 2016. Out
of these 29 earthquakes, 2 significant earthquakes have occurred in the
Indian Ocean region. These earthquakes could not generate any Tsunami
and hence no threat bulletins were issued for India.
INCOIS continued to provide forecasts on the state of the oceans, the PFZ advisories and species specific advisories for
a wide spectrum of users. The ocean state forecasts were also provided
before and during the launch day of Re-usable Launch Vehicle Technology
Demonstration (RLV-TD) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO),
and also to the research vessel Sagar Manjusha from Chennai to the
landing point of RLV in the Bay of Bengal.
On 27th
July 2016, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Hon’ble Minister of Science &
Technology and Earth Sciences dedicated the Search and Rescue Aid Tool (SARAT)
to the Nation during the XV National Maritime Search and Rescue (NMSAR)
Board. In addition, an experimental version of SARAT was used to
provide Search And Rescue support to all the concerned in connection
with the missing AN 32 aircraft, which was reportedly missing off
Chennai on 22 July 2016.
SARAT- The Search And Rescue Aid Tool
dedicated to the Nation during the XV National Maritime Search and
Rescue (NMSAR) Board meeting held in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi on 27 July
2016.
To facilitate the
indication of eco-sensitive zones, potential fishing zones, fishing
avoidance zone during the event of oil spill, the third version of
online oil spill advisory was inaugurated at the 21st National Oil Spill Disaster Contingency Plan (NOSDCP) meeting held at India International Centre, Delhi on 5 August 2016.
In
2016, INCOIS deployed 23 ARGO floats in the Indian Ocean having sensors
to collect the physical parameters, of which 11 were equipped with both
physical and biogeochemical sensors. Currently, over 732 active floats
are actively working in the Indian Ocean of which 136 were deployed by
India. So far, more than 340856 temperature and salinity profiles, 18993
dissolved oxygen and 7614 Chlorophyll profiles were collected by Argo
floats in the Indian regions.
Total number of floats deployed by
India since 1 January 2016. Blue dots indicate Bio Argo floats and red
dots indicate standard T/S floats. (b) Total Active floats in the
Indian Ocean. Red dots indicate all active floats deployed by other
countries while blue dots indicate all active floats deployed by India.
(c) Yearly
progress of Argo floats profiles in the Indian Ocean. Blue indicates
CTD profiles, red indicates Dissolved oxygen profiles and green
indicates chlorophyll profiles. X-axis represents number of profiles.
Ocean
Moored buoy Network in the Indian Ocean (OMNI) has been systematically
maintaining the twelve deep sea buoy systems with surface &
subsurface sensors, four coastal buoys and two tsunami buoys. During the
reporting period 14 cruises were conducted to carry out 41
deployments/retrievals. Over 172 ship days were utilized to cover a
distance of 11,800nm, for completing the task including deployment of
SAIC Tsunami buoy systems in May-June 2016 and the Indo-UK cruise under
the BOBBLE programme in July 2016.
The national seismological network
consisting of 82 observatories has been functioning smoothly and a total
of 245 earthquake events occurred in and around India (Latitude 0-40°
N, Longitude 60-100° E) were detected and auto-located during the period
November 2015 October, 2016. These include 40 events of magnitude 5
and above. Information pertaining to significant events were transmitted
to all concerned state and central government agencies, dealing with
relief and rescue operations in the region and also posted on the
website. Currently the second
phase of upgardation is on which envisages installation of 32 new
stations and upgradation of 6 existing stations. It is expected that by
the end of the year 2017, a total of 116 stations will be part of the
national network. These observatories are being integrated with Operational
Centre through VSAT communication facility established under the
Integrated Seismic and GPS Network (ISGN).
Seismic micro-zonation is the process of estimating
the response of soil layers under earthquake excitations and thus the
variation of earthquake characteristics on the ground surface.
In order to undertake micro-zonation, studies of 30 selected cities,
falling in seismic zone V, IV, III and State Capitals has been
initiated. As a part of this exercise, Micro-zonation of Delhi has been
completed based on Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA).
Scientific
Deep Drilling in Koyna which started in 2016 is aimed at setting up of
borehole observatory (s) at depth for directly measuring the in-situ
physical properties of the rocks, pore-fluid pressure, hydrological
parameters, temperature and other parameters of an intra-plate, active
fault zone in the near field of earthquakes - before, during and after
their occurrence, leading to a better understanding of the mechanics of
faulting, physics of reservoir triggered earthquakes and preparing a
predictive model.
Borehole
Geophysics Research Laboratory (BGRL), Karad has undertaken scientific
deep drilling and associated investigations in the Koyna seismic zone,
Maharashtra.. A Drilling Information System (DIS) has been configured
and tested, specifically, for the Koyna drilling project in
collaboration with ICDP. The key capabilities of DIS are: (i) Storage of
the drilling, geological and geophysical data acquired during an
experiment using documented procedures, formats and standards, (ii)
Generation of metadata, quality control and data security and, (iii)
Archival of the data for the future research activities.
Dr.
Harsh Vardhan, Hon’ble Union Minister, Science & Technology and
Earth Sciences at Bhoomi Pujan ceremony of BGRL on Feb 1, 2016 at
Hazarmachi, Karad, Maharashtra.
The 35th
Indian Scientific expedition to Antarctica was executed with a total of
124 expedition members representing 29 different organizations with 34
projects covering upper atmosphere, astrophysics, geophysics,
meteorology, glaciology, geology, biology, environmental sciences, human
physiology and medicine. Yoga was introduced as part of a scientific
programme.The 36th
expedition members were sent in different batches, commencing November
2016. Total 31 sub-projects/studies would cover (i) Atmospheric Science
& Meteorology, (ii) Biology & Environmental Sciences (iii) Earth
Science & Glaciology with the overall theme being the “Climate
Change”.
National
Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), Goa, under the
Ministry of Earth Sciences established a high altitude research station
in Himalaya called HIMANSH (literally meaning, a slice of ice), situated
above 13,500 ft (> 4000 m) at a remote region in Spiti, Himachal
Pradesh. This station is equipped with instruments such as Automatic
Weather Station, Water Level Recorder, Steam Drill, Snow/Ice Corer,
Ground Penetrating Radar, Differential Global positioning System, Snow
Fork, Flow Tracker, Thermister string, Radiometer etc. Water Level
Recorders were installed at five locations along with a stretch of 130
km of Chandra River in Western Himalaya for hydrological
balance/modeling. Glaciers were monitored for mass balance, dynamics,
energy balance and hydrology.
Field Research Station “Himansh” at Sutri Dhaka, Chandra basin, H.P
Under the Arctic observations program, the Indian Arctic mooring (IndARC-II) was retrieved on 26th July 2016, following which IndARC III was re-deployed successfully on 27th
July 2016. The Ambient Noise Measurement System with a single
hydrophone and a data acquisition system was deployed on IndARC-II. The
IndARC-II collected more than 116 parameters and worked continuously for
373 days in the Arctic waters. During the year, 17 projects covering
different aspects oceanography, atmospheric sciences, geology and
glaciology were implemented at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, Norway.
IndARC-II in the Arctic
IXth Southern Ocean Expedition was
launched on-board Oceanographic Research Vessel MV Agulhas [South
African vessel] from Port Louis, Mauritius during December, 2016. The
observations will be made upto Prydz Bay, the coastal waters of India's
third station in Antarctica "Bharati'.
Ministry of Earth Sciences signed
a 15-year contract with the International Seabed Authority (ISA), for
exploration of Poly-Metallic Sulphides (PMS) in Indian Ocean. The
contract was signed by Dr. M Rajeevan, Secretary, MoES and Mr. Nii
Allotey Odunton, Secretary General, ISA. The ISA is an institution set
up under the Convention on Law of the Sea to which India is a Party.
Ministry of Earth Sciences submitted an
application to International Seabed Authority for extension of contract
for exploration of Polymetallic Nodules (PMN) for a further period of 5
years (2017-22). The contract signed with International Seabed of
Authority for exploration of Polymetallic Nodules on 25th March 2002 is expiring on 24th March 2017. The PMN programme is oriented towards exploration and development of technologies for eventual extraction of nodules lying on the seabed at 4000 to 6000 m water depth
from the Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) allocated to India by UN.
India is presently having an area of 75,000 square km, located about
2000 km away from her southern tip.
Indigenously developed 500 m depth rated
shallow water/polar remotely operated vehicle (PROVe) was successfully
deployed, in the Andaman coral Islands and the vehicle was successfully
maneuvered in the undulating reef terrain to record high quality
underwater visuals of coral reef biodiversity with spectral irradiance.
Remotely Operated Vehicle
India
signed a MoU with Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
(JAMSTEC), Japan. The advancement of academic research in the field of
Earth Sciences for the benefit of the peace and human welfare is the
prime objective of the MOU.
India became a member of the International Energy Agency- Ocean Energy Systems (IEA-OES)
through signing of the Implementing Agreement. By becoming a member of
the IEA-OES, India will have access to advanced R&D teams and
technologies across the world.
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RDS/nb
(Release ID :155996)
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