India has planned to set up a center for climate change research to make necessary data available for modeling and monitoring the trends of climate change in the country. P. S. Goel, secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences announced about the government’s planning to set up such center at a meeting of the Indian Academy of Sciences in Thiruvananthapuram on November 2.

According to the report, the climate change research center will be located at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune. The center would function under the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences. The planning to establish the center is yet to receive the approval from the Union cabinet.

The research center will establish a vast network with other national and international scientific institutes and universities, that are involved in measuring the emissions of greenhouse gases and other works such as monitoring glaciers, temperature change and rainfall patterns across the world., secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

P. S. Goel said while addressing the meeting India needed a new group of satellite particularly placed in low earth orbit on around 500 kilometres above the earth. These satellites would be able to provide data and information to Indian center for climate change modelling.

Goel said:

To understand climate change fully and predict changes, we need a lot more space data and a lot more satellites. At present, Indian National Satellite INSAT spacecraft operating in a geostationary orbit 36,000 kilometres above the earth provides information regarding weather data to Indian scientists. The OCEANSAT, which operates in a polar orbit 800 kilometres above the earth, provides ocean data.

According to him, current Indian satellites cannot provide the high-resolution data. Climate change prediction models also need three-dimensional measurements of the atmosphere and oceans. Scientists need temperature and water vapour profiles from various heights in the atmosphere; other needed information on such profiles, distribution and movement of clouds in the region and measurements of aerosol particles at every 25 kilometers to model the trend of climate change over a particular region.

Because of the global warming, satellites need to capture pictures and provide necessary data about a cyclone every half an hour to give adequate advance warning at Indian coastal region. Now, the government of India has planned to launch a range of new satellites, including the Indian National Satellite, INSAT-3D, and the Megha Tropiques satellite, which is a part of an Indo-French collaboration, to help the scientists to carry on climate change research in the country.