WORLD METEOROLOGICAL DAY 2022
Ranjan Phukan & Arti Bandgar
(ranjanphukan.imd@gmail.com)
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with 193 Member States and Territories. It is the UN system's authoritative voice on the state and behaviour of the Earth's atmosphere, its interaction with the land and oceans, the weather and climate it produces and the resulting distribution of water resources. It was established on 23rd March 1950. Every year, on 23rd March World Meteorological Day, is celebrated throughout the world to commemorate this day. India, being a member of WMO, also celebrates the event. WMO chooses a theme every year that reflects topical weather, climate or water-related issues to celebrate World Meteorological Day. This year (in 2022), the theme is "Early Warning and Early Action". Early warning indicates the issue of warnings before the occurrence of a disaster. And taking steps to protect the community based on the early warning, before the disaster strike, is the Early Action.
Early warning and early action are the need of the hour in the current climate changing scenario. As a result of climate change, extreme weather events, which include heat waves, droughts, heavy rainfall, severe cyclones and many others, are increasing throughout the globe. They are becoming more frequent, as well as more intense. According to WMO's Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Weather, Climate and Water Extremes 1970-2019, the number of disasters increased five-fold between 1970 and 2019. Economic losses have increased seven-fold. According to the Sixth Assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), extreme events will further increase in future with increasing global warming. Given this, to enable the public to prepare and act appropriately in such extreme weather conditions, the generation and dissemination of meaningful weather forecasts and warnings in a time-bound manner have become very important. One positive thing in recent years is the improvement in multi-hazard early warning systems that have significantly reduced the mortality rate due to natural disasters.
Early Warning System in India:
India has also witnessed some extreme weather events in recent years. However, the early warning system of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has also improved significantly along with that. In the last decade or so, weather forecasting skills have also shown huge improvement. The network of the weather observing systems of IMD has been strengthened. The number of surface weather observing stations, both manual and automatic, has increased. It has helped to receive weather data from more locations in the country and also with a faster communication channel. More the observation points, better will be the forecasts. The number of Doppler Weather Radars (DWR) has also increased. Both the eastern and the western coasts of India have now been covered with DWRs. The coverage of DWRs in the Himalayan region is also improving. There are also improvements in the space-based observing systems, in terms of satellites. We can now receive satellite data at every ten minutes interval, compared to hours earlier. These improvements in the observing system have ensured that none of the disastrous weather events goes undetected.
In terms of weather forecasting, the resolutions of the weather prediction models are improving, with the availability of supercomputers with higher computing facilities. It has helped to forecast extreme weather events with better accuracy in terms of location and time. Emphasis has now been given on Impact Based Forecast (IBF), which not only tells what the weather forecast is but also informs what are the possible impacts of such weather and what precautions people should take in such situations. IBF has brought down the casualties and also the agricultural losses in such disastrous events. Warnings issued in graphical format and colour codes (for example, Green: No Warning, Yellow: Be Updated, Orange: Be Alert and Red: Take Action) has been proved to be more effective for people to interpret and act accordingly.
Other than the observing and forecasting systems, the dissemination system has also improved. With the availability of high-speed internet facilities, communication has now become faster. Wider use of Smartphones among the public has helped to reach the warnings to the end-users on time. The number of users of the website and mobile apps has now been increasing. Social Media has also played a vital role in the timely dissemination of weather warnings. IMD's Meteorological Centres in all the states have their own Facebook pages and Twitter handles, where weather warnings are updated regularly. Besides, there are WhatsApp groups with the officials of Disaster Management Authorities, Media person, Farmers etc., for dissemination of early warnings and ultimately helps to early action.
With the advancement in technology, the whole system of Early Warning has improved in India. Earlier, there used to have a huge loss of lives and properties due to disastrous weather in the country. One of those disastrous events, the Odisha Super Cyclone in 1999 has claimed nearly ten thousand lives. But these days, casualties due to cyclones have come down to below a hundred, and this number is decreasing every year, thanks to the Early Warnings. It helps the disaster management authorities to take Early Action and relocate the people to a safe house. The departments and other agencies are now working in close collaboration to save more and more lives. A day will come when there will be zero casualties due to natural disasters because every single life in this world matters.
Reference:
1. https://public.wmo.int/
2. Assessment of Climate Change over the Indian Region.