Climate and Weather

 A model of the coupled ocean–atmosphere system, the climate forecast system (CFS), from the National Centre for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), USA, has been ported onto the PARAM Padma parallel computing system at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), Bangalore and retrospective predictions for the summer monsoon (June–September) season of 2009 have been generated, using five initial conditions for the atmosphere and one initial condition for the ocean for May 2009.

To improve tropical cyclone warning systems in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea through effective operational plan

Organizers: India Meteorological Department(IMD), World Meteorological Organisation(WMO), Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

Venue: Scope Complex, Lodi Road, New Delhi

India has reflected significant leadership both through initiating on domestic commitments as part of its National Action Plan and through its willingness towards extending the Kyoto Protocol. The national mission action plan on climate change has initiated on institutional strengthening activities and increased activity at local level to tackle problems arising out of Climate Change. Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment released a major new report that provides an assessment of impact of climate change in 2030s on four key sectors in four climate sensitive regions of India.

The book covers 16 chapters addressing various applications starting with introduction, state of art technology, case studies, literature review, future trends besides providing relevant references which are more useful for operational scientists and researchers. The resource scientists from Remote sensing & GIS applications area have contributed these chapters.

Organizer: Government Post-Graduate College

Venue: Chamba, Himachal Pradesh

Themes:

• State of Natural Water Resources
• Living with water Problems in changing world/ climate change
• Water related Disasters

Organizer: Crop Improvement Society of India

Venue: Ludhiana

Topic:

• Agriculture: Abettor and sufferer
• Mitigation strategies – Policy and Management interventions

Content Courtesy: Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India

Press release: Indian event at Cancun re-emphasises importance of equity, 7th December 2010

India hosted a major event at the sidelines of the UN Climate Change Conference at Cancun, where the critical issue of equity and equitable access to carbon space was emphasised. 

India's Minister for Environment and Forests and Head of Delegation, Shri Jairam Ramesh personally chaired the side event that had presentations by Prof. T. Jayaraman, Tata Inst. Of Social Sciences, India, Mr. Martin Khor, Executive Dir., South Centre, Geneva and Dr. Harald, ERC & Univ. Of Cape Town, South Africa.

Download the entire press release here.

This website by the Yale University provides information on the global and countrywise ratings for environmental performance in the form of Environmental Performance Indices (EPI) for different countries. The site also provides details of EPI scores for India in comparison with the average scores globally.

This index was developed from the Pilot Environmental Performance Index, first published in 2002, and designed to supplement the environmental targets set forth in the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Performance_Index)

The author looks at three ancient Kannada and Sanskrit texts - Lokoparam, Manasollasa, Shivatattvaratnakara. All these texts were written between the 12th and 18th century. These texts record hydrological data ranging from cloud formation to traditional methods of preserving potable water.

A civil society consultation was held on “Regenerating natural resources and rural livelihoods in rainfed areas of India” by WASSAN at Hyderabad in December 2010 to discuss priorities for the twelfth five year plan. The Planning Commission, Government of India has been steering the process of development in India by conceptualizing five year plans and had sought inputs from civil society organizations, activists groups, networks of CBOs / NGOs, donors and others for preparing an approach paper for twelfth plan.

The objective of the consultation workshop was to contribute to the process of defining broad contours of twelfth plan with a focus on rural livelihoods the thrust area being policy framework, funding support, institutional arrangements etc., by -

• Consolidating the lessons from good practices in promoting and protecting rural livelihoods in the country, that could be integrated in twelfth five year plan.
• Systematically articulating issues and concerns (bottlenecks) in promoting and protecting rural livelihoods, which could be addressed in the twelfth five year plan.