After the discovery of the stratospheric ozone hole over Antarctica, scientists across the world raised concerns over its catastrophic impacts and called world leaders to deliberate and take measures to save the ozone layer. The Montreal Protocol of 1987 was the outcome of these continuous deliberations and provided direction to phase down the consumption and […]
Continue Reading
Why this unusual weather pattern? The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), in its press releases informed that intense Western Disturbances caused widespread rainfall/snowfall over the Western Himalayan region as well as squally thunderstorms over the adjoining plains of north-west India. Western Disturbances are cyclonic storms associated with the mild-latitude subtropical westerly jet. These are low pressure […]
Continue Reading
What is the Arctic haze? Arctic haze is a phenomenon that occurs at higher latitudes due to anthropogenic air pollution. It appears as a “visible reddish-brown haze” and has the capacity to remain in the northern atmosphere for several months. The extended severity of this pollution in the air mass system during winter, is majorly […]
Continue Reading
Owing to the significant spatial and temporal variability of weather patterns, prediction often becomes a tricky affair. The ways in which factors determining the weather over a particular time period—wind, temperature, relative humidity and pressure—behave, bring in an uncertainty in determining which conditions are most likely to have a greater influence on the weather. Arriving […]
Continue Reading
India Meteorological Department (IMD) is issuing the forecast for the southwest monsoon seasonal rainfall (June to September) for the country as a whole in two stages. The first stage forecast is issued in April and the second stage forecast is issued in June. IMD is using state-of-the-art Statistical Ensemble Forecasting system (SEFS) which is critically […]
Continue Reading
The dramatic changes in the Arctic environment over the past couple of decades, caused by rising surface temperatures, loss of sea ice and diminishing habitat for its wild life have forced policy makers to find science-based answers to the problem. The surface air temperatures over the Arctic have been rising twice as fast as the […]
Continue Reading
September 16 is celebrated as World Ozone Day every year . World Ozone day 2017 is special as it marks the 30th Anniversary of the Montreal Protocol. The UN’s Ozone Secretariat launched into a communication campaign ahead of World Ozone Day 2017. #OzoneHeroes was launched on September 14th in a bid to create awareness of […]
Continue Reading
In selecting the hottest destinations in India we must keep in mind that India has a largely tropical climate, and feeds somewhat into the warm winds travelling from the equatorial regions and has arid regions in addition to tropical regions. The warm winds from the equatorial regions are due to the Hadley Cell of air […]
Continue Reading
With rainfall still continuing over southeastern Texas, USA, The Guardian reports that flooding due to tropical storm Harvey has claimed at least 35 lives by August 31, 2017. In an unfortunate development, two explosions have taken place at a chemical plant in Crosby, Texas that suffered a power shortage due to the flooding caused by […]
Continue Reading
Cloudbursts in recent times On July 19, 2017, a cloudburst in the Chenab Valley region of Doda district in Jammu and Kashmir led to 8 deaths and 11 people injured (The Hindu, 2017). Many of the casualties occurred due to running debris and silt that flowed through in the Chenab Valley as a result of […]
Continue Reading