The Hindu Business Line : Experts moot regional climate research centre

Focus areas
The session also felt the need for improving the accuracy of weather forecasting and short-term climate prediction for high impact weather events.
Another area that needed focus was the development and implementation of early warning systems for all hydro-meteorological disasters.

Vinson Kurian

New Delhi, Nov. 5 Establishment of a well-equipped regional centre for climate change research with multi-lateral cooperation is among the recommendations made by an expert panel at a session on climate change at the ongoing Second India Disaster Management Congress here on Wednesday.

The proposal was originally mooted by Prof J. Shukla, President, Institute of Global Environment and Society and Professor, Climate Dynamics at George Mason University, while delivering the keynote address.

Climate models

Another proposal is for deployment of high resolution global and regional climate models that run on systems with petaflops of computing power. This would also need to be supported by high-density observational networks suitable for detection and monitoring of hydro-meteorological disasters on priority.

The session also felt a crying need for improving the accuracy of weather forecasting and short-term climate prediction for high impact weather events.

Another area that needed focus was the development and implementation of early warning systems for all hydro-meteorological disasters. This would necessitate upgrading communication systems for improving dissemination of warnings.

The experts also felt the urgent need to train young scientists in the best available institutes or acquire trained manpower from across the world in the field of climate science.

NATIONAL POLICY

On the governance front, the session felt that a national policy is required for making possible the sharing and access of meteorological, hydrological, geological and environmental data/ products within the Government and among the communities.

As for outreach, the session advised the launch of massive public awareness programmes to address people at the grass-root levels (covering farmers, workers, NGOs, community level organisations, local administrators/disaster managers, among others) through mass media or other and other public relations organs. Efforts should also be made to launch TV /Radio channels on weather and climate information.

It called for programmes to enhance the coping capacity of the community (including alternative livelihoods) to reduce risk from disasters under Involvement of civil societies, educational institutions, and religious organizations in the climate change related adaptation and mitigation actions on various climate change scenarios.

SECTORAL IMPACTS

Launch of programmes for assessing sectoral vulnerability of climate change impacts based on future scenarios was another major recommendation.

The participants were also of the view that the civil society, educational institutions, and religious organisations should be increasingly encouraged to partake in the climate change related adaptation and mitigation actions.

Dr Akhilesh Gupta, Advisor, Department of Science and Technology, coordinated the session while Dr R. K. Mall, Associate Professor, National Institute of Disaster Management, was the facilitator.

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