Mission Mausam: India's $250mn plan to enhance weather forecast capabilities

Over the next 18 months, the Indian government will be spending Rs 2,000 crore (approx $250mn) to significantly enhance the country's weather observation and forecast capabilities. Dubbed 'Mission Mausam', this effort is being helmed by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), which aims to make India ‘Weather Ready’ and ‘Climate Smart’.

Three institutes of the Ministry of Earth Sciences: the India Meteorological Department,the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, and the National Centre for Medium-RangeWeather Forecasting will primarily implement Mission Mausam. The academia will be supported by their sister institutions from India's MoES, and their global counterparts.

According to DrM Ravichandran, secretary of MoES, the first phase of this long-term project would be about scaling up weather monitoring infrastructure. This involves setting up 50 Doppler Weather Radars (DWR), 60 Radio Sonde/Radio Wind (RS/RW) stations, 100 disdrometers (to measure rain rate, fall velocity, precipitation type, droplet size), 10 Wind Profilers, 25 radiometers, an Urban testbed, a Process testbed, an Ocean Research station and 10 Marine Automatic Weather Stations with upper air observation.

He added that most of thishardware would be built by Indian industry, which means that the money spent for procuring the hardware would be pumped into the country'seconomy.

Critical elements of Mission Mausam willinclude the deployment of next-generation radars and satellite systems with advancedsensors and high-performance supercomputers, the development of improved Earthsystem models and a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based automated Decision Support System for real-time datadissemination.

Once these systems are operational, the overall quality and frequency of weather forecasts are expected to go up several notches. This is because the new hardware additions would help precisely monitor many more weather-related parameters than are being done currently. The forecasts derived from this modern equipment willimmensely benefit agriculture, disastermanagement, defence, environment, aviation, water resources, power, tourism,shipping, transport, energy, and health.

'Weather is managing us; can we manage Weather'?

Over the next five years, the MoES will set up dedicated facilities to simulate and better understand cloud formation, evolution and related phenomenon. In these specialised 'cloud chambers', teams will conduct several experiments to understand how weather can be 'managed' via scientific intervention.

Elaborating on this, DrRavichandran said that there are possibilities of scientifically intensifying a certain weather phenomenon or reducing its intensity (suppressing it). He was referring to the process of cloud seeding, which is undertaken to generate extra rainfall, during a deficit, or to meet specific requirements. Conversely, when there is a risk of very high rainfall and flooding, scientific interventions can be brought about to suppress the rainfall.

Cloud seeding is a weather modification technique aimed at altering the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds. This is typically done to increase rain or snow, reduce hail, or disperse fog. Silver iodide and potassium iodide are among the chemicals used for this purpose and are dispersed into the clouds by drones or aircraft. However such methods are widely debated by the global scientific community and require a very cautious and calculated approach.

Citing an example, he said that when there are a considerable amount of clouds over a drought-hit region, these clouds can be scientifically enhanced, so that the parched region can receive good rainfall. Likewise, the intense rain clouds headed for a flood-prone city can be suppressed. When queried about the possibility of creating scientifically induced rainfall to curb winter pollution and smog in Northern India, he said that clouds are a prerequisite to either enhance or suppress rainfall and that wintry months usually don't offer favourable cloud conditions for creating rainfall.

Once India gains considerable expertise and experience in this field, there is a possibility that such technologies can be used to 'manage weather'.

'MausamGPT':India's ChatGPT for Weather

MoES also plans to develop a weather-specific solution that's on the lines of the popular ChatGPT conversational AI model. The primary aim of MausamGPT would be to provide weather-related alerts to those using phones and other devices. For instance, when a farmer wishes to know the weather in his region for the next five days, he can dial a number on his mobile phone (need not be a smartphone), and over the call, he can get the information from an automated voice. Depending on where the call is being made from, we intend to provide such alerts in the Indian languages as well, DrRavichandran said.