Annual Report 2009-2010 - Ministry Of Earth Sciences

• Fog monitoring and forecasting service for IGI
Airport was provided on IMD’s website where
current visibility and Runway Visual Range
along with two hourly trend forecast was made
available for users.
2.8 Location Specific Forecast
The System of Air Quality Forecasting and
Research (SAFAR) for Air Quality Forecasting
for Commonwealth Games (CWG) is being
accomplished for the first time in India along
with establishing forecast and nowcast system for
the Games through commissioning of Automatic
Weather Stations, Doppler Weather Radar and
other observing systems that will provide forecast
products specific to venues. The entire system will
provide and display the information on weather
and air quality on real time and forecast the future
weather and level of pollution at various key
locations (outdoor: 12 and indoor: 4) of CWG 2010
through wireless true colour digital display panels.
The real time and forecasting will include the air
pollutants, e.g. Ozone, NOx, CO, PM 2.5
, PM 10
, Black
Carbon and Benzene. In the recent past, only a
few developed countries have demonstrated the
strength to develop this kind of system during
major games like during the Olympic Games in
Beijing, China and Melbourne, Australia.
World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
through their programme Global Atmospheric
Watch (GAW) Urban Research Meteorology and
Environment (GURME) has recognised “SAFAR”
as their pilot activity implying this effort is at
par with international standard as stipulated
by stringent scientific guidelines for confidence
in quality control and quality assurance. This
has also led MoES to represent Asian region in
the Scientific Advisory Committee for Global
Atmospheric Watch-Urban Research Meteorology
and Environment (GAW-GURME).
2.9 Environmental Monitoring
The network for Air Pollution Monitoring
comprises monitoring stations at Allahabad,
Jodhpur, Kodaikanal, Minicoy, Mohanbari, Nagpur,
Port Blair, Pune, Srinagar and Visakhapatnam that
continue to collect rain samples for chemical
analyses and measurement of atmospheric
turbidity with the objective of documenting the
long-term changes in composition of trace species
of the atmosphere. The wet precipitation samples
are analysed at Central Chemical Laboratory for
pH, conductivity, major cations (Ca, Mg, Na, K,
NH 4
) and anions (SO 4
, NO 3
, Cl).
Atmospheric Turbidity indicating the columnar
aerosol load of the atmosphere continued to be
measured at Allahabad, Jodhpur, Kodaikanal,
Nagpur, Port Blair, Srinagar, Pune, Mohanbari,
Minicoy and Visakhapatnam. These data provide
reliable long-term observations of the chemical
composition of the atmosphere and related
parameters in order to improve understanding of
atmospheric chemistry.
Specific services pertaining to environment are
rendered to the Ministry of Environment and
Forests and other Government agencies in the
assessment of likely air pollution impacts arising
from thermal power generation, industries and
mining activities. Atmospheric diffusion models
developed for carrying out air quality impacts of
multiple sources located in different climatic and
geographical conditions are being utilised for
siting of industries and adoption of air pollution
control strategies.
2.10 Satellite Meteorology
2.10.1 INSAT Data Reception and Processing
At present, IMD is receiving and processing
meteorological data from two Indian satellites,
namely Kalpana-1 at 74 ° E and INSAT-3A at
93.5 ° E. At present, about 48 satellite images are
taken daily from Kalpana-1 which is the main
operational satellite and 9 images are taken
from INSAT-3A. Imaging from CCD is done five
times during daytime only. All the received data
from the satellite is processed and archived
in National Satellite Data Centre (NSDC),
New Delhi.
6 Ministry of Earth Sciences : Annual Report 2009-10