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Journalism of Courage
In a quiet corner of Udhampur, at a height of 2,250 metres above mean sea level, where snow covers the hill tops and wisps of clouds come to you, stands a white container. This is India’s first-of-its-kind atmospheric monitoring station meant to study a little-known aspect of how clouds are formed.
While scientists have a fairly robust understanding of the general processes of cloud formation and precipitation, a key part of this process — related to the formation of ice crystals in clouds and their impact on rainfall — is poorly understood. Inaugurated last week, the new station in Jammu and Kashmir aims to bridge this critical information gap, which affects the ability of scientists to model cloud behaviour and make accurate rainfall predictions, particularly those of extreme events.
The new station will focus on the study of ice nucleating particles (INPs), the rare and hard-to-detect small particles floating in the air that are the starting points for the formation of ice crystals in clouds. These ice crystals eventually come down as rain or snow or hail, once they grow bigger by accumulating more water droplets in the clouds.
Though the study of INPs is growing, it is still not very common, mainly because of the difficulties in detecting these particles due to their very low concentration in the atmosphere. Udhampur’s Himalayan High Altitude Atmospheric and Climate Research Centre will be the first facility in India to enable these studies.
Established by the Central University, Jammu, in collaboration with the Ministry of Earth Sciences, this new centre is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment that will facilitate this area of research.
“The climate centre is meant to carry out many kinds of observations related to weather and climate, but the study of INPs is surely going to be its USP (unique selling point),” says Shweta Yadav, the centre in-charge and associate dean of international affairs at the Central University in Jammu.
INP studies at the Udhampur centre, located 2,250 metres above mean sea level, will be carried out in association with scientists from ETH Zurich, Switzerland who have been using a similar instrument at their research station located high in the snow-covered mountains of Jungfraujoch. Higher altitudes are more suited for these kinds of studies.
“At these locations, the clouds literally come to you. So, it is much easier to run your experiments and make observations. The alternative would be to send the instruments on an aircraft into the clouds. That is costly and yields only short-term measurements,” says Vijay Kumar Soni, the head of the environment monitoring research centre at India Meteorological Department.
India’s other facility to study cloud dynamics is located in Mahabaleshwar, a popular tourist destination in Maharashtra. Though Mahabaleshwar is not located at very high altitudes — only about 1,300 metres above mean sea level — it gets clouds at very low levels, especially during the monsoon. The facility, run by the Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, does not have the instruments to carry out INP studies.
INPs are a critical component of cloud dynamics and precipitation processes. They play an essential role in much of the rainfall and snowfall across the world. Clouds form when water vapour in the atmosphere rises up and cools down, condensing on small particles like dust to make water droplets or ice crystals. Once the water droplets coalesce and become bigger, this process can, on its own, result in rainfall. However, in most situations, INPs enter the picture to facilitate and speed up this process.
INPs, which can be mineral dust, soot or biological particles like bacteria or pollen, have some special properties that help in the conversion of water droplets in clouds into ice crystals. Their structure is similar to ice crystals, and their surface is able to attract and hold water molecules.
Without the intervention of INPs, water droplets in clouds would remain in liquid form even at temperatures of -35 degrees Celsius. INPs ensure the formation of ice crystals at -5 to -10 degrees Celsius. Ice crystals are heavier and grow faster by accumulating surrounding water droplets. This results in speeding up of the precipitation process, leading to more widespread rains. In the absence of INPs, water droplets in clouds can hang around for much longer without causing rainfall.
Since not every floating bacteria or pollen or dust particle can perform the role of INPs, scientists cannot, for now, tell which particles have greater potential at making ice crystals. As such, their exact concentration at any location is not very clear. The exact molecular mechanism through which ice nucleation happens is also not understood very well.
“Our current cloud models make certain assumptions about the role of INPs based on our existing understanding. A thorough study of INPs can tell us whether these assumptions are correct or need to be modified. These insights will help us improve our models, which in turn will improve our ability to forecast rains or snow more accurately,” says M Ravichandran, a Secretary in the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
The Udhampur centre is important for many other reasons too. India does not have a well-distributed weather and climate observation network in Jammu and Kashmir — and the Himalayan region in general — which is a major shortcoming since the Himalayas are one of the biggest global climate hotspots. This centre will ensure real-time continuous measurements of weather and environmental parameters, like aerosol-cloud interactions, air pollution, changes in precipitation patterns and hydrological cycles.
The idea is to eventually make this centre a part of Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) network of World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). The GAW programme seeks to create a standardised and unified dataset of atmospheric processes through a network of laboratories across the globe that make continuous observations of greenhouse gases, ozone, solar radiations, aerosols and other parameters. Though India does participate in and contribute to GAW, it does not have a global GAW station as of now. These global stations have the most extensive measurement protocols, generating and contributing the most robust atmospheric data.
The Udhampur station fulfils a key requirement of being a global GAW station that other institutions in the country lack — a remote and quiet location. Global GAW stations are supposed to be located away from human disturbances and sources of pollution so that they are able to make pristine measurements.
India’s closest global GAW station is located in Nepal. The Udhampur centre, regardless of whether it eventually develops into a GAW station, is an invaluable asset for India’s atmospheric scientists and offers a big opportunity for India to take the lead in improving the understanding of Himalayan ecosystems.
“Preserving the Himalayas is not a regional concern but a global imperative,” Jitendra Singh, the Minister of Science and Technology and the local MP for the area, had said while inaugurating the facility last week.
“With this station, we are opening up a new gateway into climate research and studies in the Himalayas. The implication is that J&K also joins India’s global headways in addressing the climate concerns,” he had said.
