New Delhi: In a bid to sharpen monsoon
forecasts, government will soon launch a `Monsoon Mission` for
carrying out focused research across organizations and
develop indigenous prediction models.
"The Monsoon Mission would be launched for coordinated
research to deliver accurate forecasts of the monsoon season,"
Earth Sciences Minister Prithviraj Chavan said at a function
to mark 135 years of the India Meteorological Department.
The programme would entail coordinated research across
universities and IITs for developing monsoon prediction models
and speed up analyses of observation data gathered from across
the country.
As a first step in this direction, a high power computing
system (HPCS) has been installed at the IMD headquarters here.
The HPCS, which was inaugurated by Chavan today, is expected
to boost scientific and forecasting capabilities of the
weather office.
"Earlier, it would take us several hours to run
forecasting models using observational data. This could now be
achieved in 20 minutes," IMD Director General Ajit Tyagi told
PTI.
The HPCS has a top speed of 14.4 teraflops with storing
capacity of 300 terabytes. It is also equipped with a robotic
retrieval system with separate servers at 11 Meteorological
Centres across the country.
PTI
