SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK

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Visit to the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune,
November 23, 2007

Web page: http://www.tropmet.res.in/

The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) was founded in 1971 and is financed by the Central Government of India. It has six research divisions:

- Forecasting Research
- Climatology & Hydrometeorology
- Physical Meteorology & Aerology
- Instruments & Observational Techniques
- Theoretical Studies
- Climate & Global Modelling

IITM employs more than 70 researchers and has approximately 40 Ph.D. students.
Since 1992, ITM has collaborated with the Department of Meteorology at Stockholm University, where Professor Henning Rodhe and Associate Professor Lennart Granat are key contacts for the Indo-Swedish collaboration.

Dr. P.D. Safai (photo to the right) at IITM was kind enough to show us around the various departments, such as the Assimilation Laboratory, the Forecasting Research Division, the Instruments and Observational Techniques, and the Climate and Global Modelling Division. It was a very interesting visit and IITM seems to be on the cutting edge of new technology.

Dr. Safai’s own research scrutinizes rainwater samples from different areas in order to, determine the origin of pollutants. International networking is essential for this purpose and his collaboration with Stockholm University involves this kind of work. The main research that is going on at the Institute concerns such matters as the effect of the use of aerosols, pesticides, and fossil fuels; air pollution, global warming, the ozone layer, climate change; and research on weather forecasting.