Climate Change Making Prediction Difficult For Weather Agencies: IMD

Impacts of climate change, IMD installing radars, upgrading its computing system to meet the challenge

NEW DELHI: Climate change has hampered the ability of forecasting agencies to accurately predict severe events and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) is installing more radars and upgrading its high-performance computing system to meet the challenge, IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said here.

He also said that though the monsoon rainfall has not shown any significant trend in the country, the number of heavy rainfall events has increased and that of light rainfall events has decreased due to climate change.

The impact-based forecast will improve to become “more granular, specific and accurate” by 2025 and IMD will be able to provide forecasts up to panchayat level clusters and specific areas in cities in the coming years, the IMD chief told in an interview.

“Climate change has increased the instability in the atmosphere, leading to an increase in convective activity -- thunderstorms, lightning and heavy rainfall. The severity of cyclones in the Arabian Sea is also increasing.

“This increase in the frequency of extreme weather events is posing a challenge to forecasters. Studies show that the ability to predict heavy rainfall is hampered due to climate change,” he said.

Work on bolstering network