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Nearly 200 scientists from leading operational centres and research laboratories from a number of countries interested in monsoon problem will participate in a two-day international brainstorming meeting on “Modeling and Prediction over the Indian Monsoon Region: Vision 2015”, being organised by National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) in NOIDA on February 1-2, 2005.
Weather and climate prediction using dynamical techniques has made significant progress since the advent of computers. The pace of progress has been particularly fast during the last two decades. This has been possible due to explosive growth in computing power, availability of voluminous data from non-conventional sources such as satellites and enhanced understanding of the underlying physical processes. However, modeling and prediction of the monsoon, particularly the Indian monsoon, continues to pose a great challenge for the meteorological community the world over.
NCMRWF is the only Centre in India that is dedicated to medium and extended range predictions using numerical modeling techniques. End-to-end global assimilation forecast systems are used to generate medium range forecasts daily. The Centre was functioning till recently from a temporary facility at Mausam Bhavan Complex in Delhi and has now moved to its own campus at NOIDA, U.P. The Centre is now well poised to enhance its manpower and computational resources which will help it in expanding its R & D activities. Accelerating improvement in modeling and prediction of monsoon is one of its foremost priorities.
The NCMRWF has taken up the task of developing strategy and roadmap in bringing about the desired improvement in quality of forecasts and customize them for various sectors/ user agencies. The proposed meeting is a part of this strategy. The aim of the meeting is to review current status and develop a road map for providing accurate weather prediction. Another aim is to bring synergy in efforts being made by various Centres in the country engaged in related activities. One of the important outcome of the upcoming Brainstorming Meeting is to bring out the vision document to accelerate improvement in NWP guidance for weather forecasting over Indian Monsoon Region.
Coinciding with the Conference, district level forecasts of meteorological parameters(maximum/minimum temperature, wind speed and direction, rainfall, humidity fields, surface pressure field etc.) will be put by the Centre on its web site www.ncmrwf.gov.in for the benefit of general public and different sectors of economy shall be launched by him. There has been a pressing demand for such a product for quite some time.
The Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Prof. V.S. Ramamurthy who has been awarded Padma Bhushan this year and Prof. Jagdish Shukla, an eminent scientist of Indian origin and presently working as President, Institute of Global environment & Society, USA will be felicitated on the occasion. Prof. Shukla was recently awarded the CG Rossby Award, considered to be the Nobel Prize in the field of meteorology.
SK
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