IMD at 150: Precision, progress & promise
MANY government organisations are engaged in scientific research and several work directly for the welfare of the people. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) is unique in that it is mandated to do both. Another exclusive feature that distinguishes the IMD from other organisations is that it is required to make accurate predictions of the future. The time scale ranges from the next few hours to days, months, years or decades and the space scale ranges from an airport or a village to a district, state, country, continent or ocean.
Established on January 15, 1875, the IMD has strived to harness the science of meteorology for the service of the nation through weather-monitoring and science-based weather and climate prediction.
Its activities have helped enhance farm outputs, manage water resources, ensure aviation safety and mitigate disasters. The IMD touches the lives of individuals, influences policy and helps envisage the future world.
The IMD has, indeed, come a long way in its journey of 150 years. In the last decade, in particular, there has been a perceptible increase in the scope and precision of IMD's forecasts on all space and time scales. This is a visible outcome of the augmentation of IMD's techno-scientific base of advanced models supported by radars, satellites and supercomputers.
The loss of life associated with tropical cyclones has been reduced from several thousands to near zero. Droughts and floods that are recurrent features of the monsoon have now become fully manageable.
India's British rulers had a natural fascination for observatories: astronomical, seismological, geomagnetic and, of course, meteorological. For nearly 80 years before IMD came into being, local governments, railways and port authorities were setting up observatories for recording the weather.
There were also numerous individuals who pursued astronomy and meteorology as a serious hobby. These included civilian and army officers, doctors, professors, geographers, sailors, surveyors and missionaries, who meticulously maintained meteorological records.
In an exception, one of the earliest observatories in India was established at Trivandrum not by the British but by the Maharaja of Travancore. India is, therefore, fortunate to possess meteorological records that span two centuries, constituting a valuable resource for climate change studies.
By 1875, India had 86 meteorological observatories and it was time to bring them together under the umbrella of a single agency. The Government of India decided to call it the India Meteorological Department, with a jurisdiction extending from Quetta to Rangoon and Leh to Colombo. It was to be headed by the Imperial Meteorological Reporter to the Government of India. The designation was later changed to Director General of Observatories and again to Director General of Meteorology, reflecting the changing responsibility that the post carried.
It goes to the IMD's credit that it never worked in colonial style. Indian scientists were recruited by the IMD as early as in 1885 and Indians were occupying most of the senior positions by 1920. Much before India got independence, the IMD had an Indian as its head. Many British meteorologists in the IMD made seminal contributions to our understanding of the monsoon and tropical cyclones and several Indian meteorologists in the IMD helped build new scientific institutions.
The Sanskrit words ‘Adityat Jayate Vrishtih’ incorporated in the IMD's logo are taken from India's age-old wisdom literature. They assure us that as long as the sun shines, we will have our monsoon rains. However, it is also true that while the monsoon comes every year and has never failed to do so, it does not always give us its best.
Returning to the present times, it is of significance that the 2024 monsoon yielded an 8 per cent excess rainfall for the country as a whole, and it was very close to the IMD prediction. What is also important is the fact that since 2017, the monsoon rainfall has been normal, meaning that it has consistently remained within the margin of plus or minus 10 per cent of the long-term average. The year 2024 was the eighth year in this series of good or satisfactory monsoons.
In parallel, India's annual foodgrain production shot up from 275 mmt in 2017 to a record-breaking 330 mmt in 2023 and is expected to surpass this figure in 2024. From the viewpoint of the nation's food security, this rise is very substantial.
It is, of course, a result of sustained efforts in multiple areas, but it has once again highlighted the fact that the monsoon continues to hold a strong grip on Indian agriculture and, through it, on the overall economy.
It also needs to be noted with caution that long epochs of successive good monsoon years have been very few historically. It will, therefore, be worthwhile to attempt predictions of monsoon rainfall over longer time scales, like a decade or two, so that long-term policy decisions can be taken.
While the monsoon is under the constant shadow of climate change and concerns are expressed about its future, it seems to have been doing well so far in the overall scenario.
The effect of climate change on the Indian monsoon is apparent more on the micro scale. Situations like cloudbursts, extremely intense precipitation, landslides, lightning strikes and urban flooding are occurring with increasing frequency, causing severe damage to crops and property and loss of life.
The IMD needs to tackle these issues through targeted warnings. In this context, its plans to give forecasts on the gram panchayat level are welcome.
The IMD was established in 1875 against the backdrop of the havoc caused by a severe tropical cyclone in the Bay of Bengal in 1864 and two famines in 1866 and 1871, with the expectation that advance information of storms and monsoon failures would become available. Over its 150 years' journey, this has largely been achieved.
However, with the current accelerated growth of the nation and its march towards a trillion-dollar economy, the demand for meteorological services has been coming from many new quarters, besides the IMD's traditional users.
The newly approved and highly ambitious Mission Mausam offers the IMD a great opportunity to re-equip itself and become future-ready.