Indian Cabinet approves Rs 2000 cr 'Mission Mausam' plan to boost weather forecast, tweak clouds

The Indian government said it will help to better equip stakeholders, including citizens and last-mile users, in tackling extreme weather events and the impacts of climate change.

The project will reportedly enable the Met department to develop capabilities to ‘manage’ certain weather events, like enhancing or suppressing rainfall over an area according to requirements.

M Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, told The Indian Express: "Eventually, we have to move in that direction — from just weather forecasting to weather management. For example, if incessant rains are happening in an area resulting in floods, we can try to suppress rainfall. Alternatively, if an area is not getting enough rainfall, we can try to engineer rainfall over that area."

“At a later stage, other weather events like lightning can also be managed,” he said.

As part of the Mission Mausam, India will exponentially expound research and development, and capacity in atmospheric sciences, especially weather surveillance, modelling, forecasting, and management. By integrating advanced observation systems, high-performance computing, and cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning, Mission Mausam will set a new benchmark for predicting weather with high precision.

The mission's focus will include improving observations and understanding for providing highly accurate and timely weather and climate information across temporal and spatial scales, including monsoon forecasts, alerts for air quality, extreme weather events and cyclones, weather interventions for managing fog, hail, and rain, etc., capacity building and generating awareness, the government said.

Critical elements of Mission Mausam will include the deployment of next-generation radars and satellite systems with advanced sensors and high-performance supercomputers, the development of improved Earth system models and a GIS-based automated Decision Support System for real-time data dissemination.

It would also enhance data-driven decision-making in areas such as urban planning, road and rail transport, offshore operations, and environmental monitoring.

Three institutes of the Ministry of Earth Sciences: the India Meteorological Department, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, and the National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting will primarily implement Mission Mausam.

These institutions will be supported by other MoES institutions (Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, and National Institute of Ocean Technology), along with collaborating national and international Institutes, Academia and Industries, furthering India's leadership in weather and climate sciences and services.

The mission has been allocated Rs. 2,000 crore for the next two years.

Why is this initiative important for India?

As per a report released by Centre for Science and Environment, India had seen close to a disaster every day in the nine months of 2022.

These disasters had claimed 2,755 lives, affected 1.8 million hectare of crop area, destroyed over 416,667 houses and killed close to 70,000 livestock that year, as per the report.

Quoting government data, The Economic Times reported over 10,000 people have lost their lives in hydro-meteorological disasters in the last five years.

Following its implementation, Mission Mausam is expected to directly benefit numerous sectors, such as agriculture, disaster management, defence, environment, aviation, water resources, power, tourism, shipping, transport, energy, and health.