Micro-level climate management to be the main focus : Official

    During the heavy rains in Mumbai in September last, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) was able to predict and pinpoint accurately the movement of rain.

The rain was moving from Colaba to Thane, and we had predicted that there would be heavy rain at Santacruz between 12 noon and 4 p.m. As a result, people, including cab drivers, were able to take the required precautions, said K.J. Ramesh, Director-General of IMD, New Delhi.

Dr. Ramesh was here on Thursday to deliver the Prof. Rokkam Ramanadham memorial lecture in Andhra University.

Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of the programme, Dr. Ramesh said the IMD was focussing on micro-level climate management to help people, farmers, and other stakeholders minimise loss to life, property and businesses and, more importantly, infuse a sense of preparedness to mitigate the impending danger.

“The IMD focuses on global and regional predictions. And now, it is focussing on city predictions, which can narrow down to a radius of 1 km, wherever there is a radar,” he said.

“We are in the process of building applications to measure climate change and variability, and its impact on the life of people and farmers,” he added.

Cloud Computing

“The IMD will be migrating to Cloud Computing storage, Big Data Analytics, and Web-GIS based decision support system tools by 2020,” Dr. Ramesh said.

“Once we migrate to Cloud Computing, we will generate Apps that can be downloaded into mobile phones. By this June, will be experimenting with one such App. We are also working to equip all civilian airports with ‘Drishti’, Runway Visual Range, by 2020. As of now, we have it in place in 20 airports,” he said.

The lecture was organised by the Indian Meteorological Society, Visakhapatnam Chapter.

Chairman of the chapter and professor in the Department of Meteorology and Oceanography, Andhra University, S.S.V.S. Ramakrishna, AU Vice-Chancellor G. Nageswara Rao, and former students and family members of Prof. Ramanadham spoke.