As weather patterns grow more unpredictable due to climate crisis, India is taking a giant leap with "Mission Mausam" to improve weather understanding and forecasting through expanded observation networks, better modeling and advanced tools like AI and machine learning.
The mission will include creating a laboratory to artificially develop clouds, increasing the number of radars by over 150 per cent and adding new satellites, supercomputers and much more.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved "Mission Mausam" and allocated Rs 2,000 crore for its first phase, which will run until March 2026.
Why is it needed?
According to the Ministry of Earth Sciences, tropical weather forecasting remains challenging due to the complexity of atmospheric processes and limitations in current observation and model resolution.
Observational data is relatively sparse, both spatially and temporally, and the horizontal resolution of Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models, currently at 12 kilometres, makes it difficult to accurately forecast small-scale weather events in India, it said.
At the same time, climate change is making the atmosphere more chaotic, resulting in isolated heavy rainfall and localised droughts, which pose simultaneous challenges of flooding and drought. Cloudbursts, thunderstorms, lightning and squalls are among the least understood weather events in India.
Understanding these complex patterns requires in-depth knowledge of physical processes occurring within and outside clouds, on the surface, in the upper atmosphere, over oceans and in polar regions, the ministry said.
This calls for high-frequency observations at the ground level and across the earth system with improved spatial and vertical resolutions to monitor the earth's dynamic systems effectively and increasing the horizontal resolution of NWP models from 12 kilometres to six kilometres to generate panchayat-level forecasts, it said.
What will happen over the next five years?
Union Ministry of Earth Sciences Secretary M. Ravichandran said the five-year mission would be implemented in two phases.
The first phase, which runs until March 2026, will focus on expanding the observation network. This includes adding around 70 Doppler radars, high-performance computers and setting up 10 wind profilers and 10 radiometers.
To put the scale of the task into context, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has installed 39 Doppler radars to date and has never set up a wind profiler.
"We will also conduct an Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) in the first phase, which will help determine the number of observations needed moving forward," Ravichandran said.
The second phase will focus on adding satellites and aircraft to further enhance observational capabilities.
Over the five-year period, the ministry and its institutions -- the India Meteorological Department, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and the National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting -- will work to improve their understanding of weather and climate processes and prediction capabilities and develop weather management technologies.
What is a cloud chamber and what does Mission Mausam say about weather management?
The ministry has said that a "cloud chamber" will be established at the Indian Institute of Meteorology in Pune within the next one and a half years under the mission to study the processes occurring within clouds in the context of rising temperatures.
Rising temperatures lead to clouds becoming taller and more electrically active, while their horizontal spread may shrink. This can result in stronger thunderstorms and more frequent lightning events and impact rainfall dynamics, Ravichandran said.
"We will artificially create clouds inside a laboratory at the IITM and conduct experiments. This will help the scientists better understand these processes and figure out which types of clouds can be seeded (a process where substances are added to clouds to make them produce rain), what materials should be used for seeding and how much seeding is needed to either increase rain or even prevent rain," he said.
The insights gained from the cloud chamber will also help improve the parameterization of weather models, supporting the indigenization of these models, he said.
"We aim to artificially enhance or suppress rain and hail within the next five years. After that, we can focus on the other weather phenomena like lightning," Ravichandran said.
Asked why weather management is needed, he explained, "If it's raining continuously in Delhi, which could lead to flooding, can I suppress the rain? By seeding the clouds a little more, it may stop raining. Similarly, in a drought-prone area, this could help prevent droughts by enhancing rainfall."
Cloud seeding involves dispersing substances into the air to encourage condensation, resulting in precipitation. The most common substances used for cloud seeding include silver iodide, potassium iodide and dry ice (solid carbon dioxide). These agents provide the nuclei around which water vapour can condense, ultimately leading to the formation of rain or snow.
This weather modification technique has been utilised in several parts of the world, primarily in the regions experiencing water scarcity or drought conditions.
Some of the countries and states that have employed the cloud seeding technology include the US, China, Australia and the UAE.
However, the effectiveness and environmental impact of cloud seeding remain subjects of ongoing research.
An IMD official told PTI that there have been a few attempts in India in this regard -- in Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The research is ongoing, but it has not made significant progress so far.
The Delhi government also considered using cloud seeding to improve air quality during winter in collaboration with IIT-Kanpur. The goal was to induce rain to wash away pollutants. However, the project got delayed because it required permissions from several Central government agencies, including aviation and environmental authorities.
What are the other main objectives?
Mission Mausam aims to improve short to medium range weather forecast accuracy by five to 10 per cent and enhance air quality prediction in all major metro cities by up to 10 per cent.
It will enable weather prediction up to the panchayat level with a lead time of 10 to 15 days and improve the nowcast frequency from three hours to one hour.
A nowcast provides a very short-term prediction, usually for the next few hours. It is useful for tracking fast-changing weather events such as thunderstorms, heavy rain or snow.
