President Barack Obamas visit has taken forward the country's "Monsoon Mission",in which Pune's Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) will play a key role. On Saturday,officials inked a pact under which Indias Ministry of Earth Sciences will tie up with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the US,to design a weather prediction model to improve Indian monsoon forecasts. The model is set to be operational next monsoon. The agreement has been formalised in Delhi through the President's representative in New Delhi where IITM,Pune,will play a key role, said Scientific Advisor to the Ministry of Earth Sciences,Swati Basu. The 'Technical Cooperation for the Study of Dynamical Seasonal Prediction of Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall' was on the cards but was formalised with Obamas visit. It was signed by NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco and Secretary,MoES,Shailesh Nayak. Speaking to The Indian Express from New Delhi Saturday,Basu said the pact will help in giving forecasts two weeks in advance,which will benefit Indian farmers. The country is already using the model,but this would be an advanced model,having high resolution,better representation and better coordination from both Indian and US scientists. IITM will be the main coordinator for the programme and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) the main operational forecaster. IITM director BN Goswami said the model will boost the Monsoon Mission. "It will couple oceanic atmospheric model and although we have already started the work informally the agreement will help formalise data exchange between Indian and US scientists," he said. IITM will set up a forecast system which will have the oceanic atmospheric model and other data and will closely work with other centres of weather forecasts such as the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting in India as well as IMD which will use the data as it is the operational organisation. A monsoon desk will be set up in NOAA and the weather model will be a set of mathematical rules which will help predict the weather using initial conditions of the atmosphere over land and sea. The US Climate Forecast Model (CFM),developed at the National Centres for Environmental Prediction,is described as a "fully-coupled model" that represents interactions between the oceans,land and atmosphere. The US began to use it in August 2004. Many leading Indian Institutions of weather forecasts will work with IITM for improving weather forecasts for the country.
