PARLIAMENT QUESTION: PROGRESS REPORT OF MISSION MAUSAM

PARLIAMENT QUESTION: PROGRESS REPORT OF MISSION MAUSAM

Mission Mausam is currently in the beginning phase of its implementation. However, once implemented, this project will help in the overall improvement of the short and medium-range weather forecast accuracy by about 5-10 %.

Radars, satellite products, and AWS/ARG are needed mainly for nowcast or for very short duration forecasts for improving location-based forecasts of likely occurrences of thunderstorms and heavy rainfall upto 6 hours. Worldwide, for issuing heavy rainfall forecasts and associated flash floods and other types of floods, weather predictions are made using various observational systems and then by running various NWP models. Presently, IMD has a very good observational network consisting of surface, upper air, and remote sensing (radar and satellite) observations. These observations are assimilated in various state-of-the-art regional and global numerical models to generate weather forecasts at different time scales. Radar observations help only in further tuning at the local scale in terms of nowcast of small-scale severe weather events, mainly used for nowcast purposes.

Doppler Weather Radars (DWRs) are vital tools equipped to detect, monitor, and support the prediction of extreme monsoon events. The DWR observations are available every ten minutes in the form of images with cloud types and their vertical developments over areas within the radar. So, it helps in monitoring and issuing nowcast warnings of thunderstorms, associated with heavy rainfall activities, at a very short duration of upto 3 hours.

The India Meteorological Department has been interacting and collaborating with other MoES institutions, and has undertaken several programmes towards Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) related research activities for application in the field of weather forecasting services. Some of them are given Annexure-1.

MoES institutions such as IMD, IITM, NCMRWF, etc., regularly coordinate with other developed countries regarding their technical advancement with respect to meteorological services and early warning systems, like Korea, Japan, the USA, UK, and other European countries. Knowledge-based practices are shared in this field through the exchange of visits of forecasters and scientists from various countries to India. Due to such regular interaction, India is moreover under the umbrella of Regional Specialised Meteorological Centres, Tropical Cyclone, Severe Weather, and climate services.

Annexure-1

 

 

The usage of AI-based monitoring tools and forecasting models is as follows:

 

 

This information was given by Dr. Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology, Earth Sciences, MoS PMO, MoS Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.