New Delhi: India has announced its intention to launch a multi-year, multi-phase research effort to explore technologies for weather modification seeking to mitigate the impacts of extreme weather events such as cloudbursts, droughts, fog, or hailstorms.
The research initiative on weather modification will be part of a new scientific mission that will also seek to bolster weather surveillance infrastructure and enhance the reliability of forecasts, Union Earth Science Ministry officials and scientists have said.
The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister has approved the mission, with an outlay of Rs.2,000 crore over two years.
Fact file on Mission Mausam
- It will be primarily implemented by three key institutions under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES)
(a) the India Meteorological Department,
(b) the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and
(c) the National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting.
- These will be supported by other MoES bodies, such as the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research and the National Institute of Ocean Technology.
- Mission Mausam’s objective is to enhance India’s ability to predict and respond to extreme weather events and the impacts of climate change.
- Its focus will be on improving observations and understanding to deliver highly accurate and timely weather and climate information across temporal and spatial scales.
- Information on monsoon, air quality, extreme weather events, cyclones and weather interventions for managing fog, hail and rain will be gathered through it.
- Critical elements of “Mission Mausam” include:
(a) deployment of next-generation radars and satellite systems with advanced sensors
(b) high-performance supercomputers, the development of enhanced Earth system models
(c) GIS-based automated decision support system for real-time data sharing
- The mission will benefit multiple sectors, including agriculture, disaster management, defence, aviation, energy, water resources and tourism.
- It will improve decision-making in areas like urban planning, transportation and environmental monitoring.
- Through this mission, India will exponentially expand research and development, and capacity in atmospheric sciences, especially weather surveillance, modelling, forecasting and management.
- It will integrate advanced observation systems, high-performance computing and cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Engineering rains through cloud-seeding exercises has been tried out in several countries, including in India, with varying degrees of success.
Over the next 18 months (by 2026), the numbers of Doppler radars, wind profilers, radiometers and radio sonde will be increased by many folds. All these are essential tools and infrastructure used for recording weather data from across the surface, atmosphere and oceans.
Cloud seeding is a kind of weather modification technology to create artificial rainfall. It works only when there are enough pre-existing clouds in the atmosphere.
