Critical Failures of Indian Weather Prediction in a
Climate Challenged World
=====================================================================
Soumya
Dutta, Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha /Beyond Copenhagen collective.
In terms of a
farming tragedy, the drought in many parts of the country during the 2009
monsoon season, was yet fresh in the lives of our peasants, and it also took a significant
toll on the Indian economy. Here we must make a difference between large scale,
inputs intensive industrial agriculture – practiced in large scale in our grain
belts of Punjab, Haryana and to some extent in Andhra Pradesh & Tamilnadu
also – which were affected to a lesser extent (but still adversely affected) due
to their capacity to access powered-irrigation, from the roughly 60% of Indian
peasant farmers who still practice rain-fed cultivation, not necessarily by
choice but largely out of lack of resources.
NORMALLY, one would not expect
another drought like condition so soon – in 2012, especially with no adverse
ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) condition in the beginning of the monsoon season,
but these are not normal times in terms of the increasingly visible impacts of
global climate change. The beginning of
the year 2012 saw a severe winter in Europe, by some accounts – the worst in
the last 20 years. Unusual snow-storms
raged in southern Europe and also in north Africa. Rome and Tripoli – of all places, experienced
heavy snow falls. There was a large no of deaths in Europe from exposure to
extreme cold, in late January and early February 2012. This was followed by an unusually hot summer
in southern and middle United States.
Its grain belt was scorched, leading to a significant fall in the
production of corn, which combined with the US agro-fuel policy (of partly
replacing mineral origin gasoline by biological origin ethanol and producing
this from its abundant corn harvests) to create a global food crisis and food
prices shooting up, leading to heavy hits being taken by the poor & food
insecure in several countries. And in
the far northern summer, there are frightening decreases in the Arctic ice
cover, and very worrying melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which are
indications of things going way beyond normal.
The cold wave in
Europe in the early parts of the year 2012 was caused largely by significant
‘incursions’ of the Jet Stream to the south over Europe, which allowed the
colder air from northern latitudes to invade far south. Northern hemispheric Jet stream is a large
& strong band of upper atmospheric wind pattern between the temperate &
arctic regions, and normally flow fairly straight from west to east – dividing
the colder higher latitudes from the warmer southern ones, but when and where they
protrude either south or north for long periods, these causes severe weather
over these ‘invaded’ regions. The jet
streams (both northern & southern hemispheric ones), as is the ENSO
phenomenon, are very much dependent on the global patterns of atmospheric &
oceanic heat flows, both of which are undergoing fairly rapid (by geological
time standards) and ‘erratic’ changes.
And these are causing drastic changes or ‘aberrations’ in the familiar
weather patterns. This is also evident
from the apparently increasing frequency of the ENSO phenomenon, which were
earlier occurring much less frequently – as shown by evidence from south
American lake bed deposits (ENSO is an above normal warming of the equatorial
waters of the western Pacific Ocean, from near the coast of south America, and
the changes in precipitation & other resultant effects are recorded in the lake
bed soil there).
This global
warming driven climate change is an unfortunate outcome of the energy
intensive, consumption driven capitalist economic model that the world seems to
have grown accustomed to, but we will not deal with that question here. In this piece, let’s focus on the small
farmers and other artisanal workers (including fish-workers and as such) of
India, who have to depend on the blessings of ‘normal’ or familiar weather, and
how the scientific community of meteorologists in India have failed to serve
even their basic needs of reasonably correct information. This is not to cut the usual jokes on our meteorological
predictions (which are not entirely without justification) – as the challenges
they face are significant, but to highlight how it is much more critical to
generate and spread correct weather information to people dependent on such
information for their livelihoods and also for the nation as a whole, not least
in terms of disaster preparedness in the face of increasing number of
devastating floods. This is particularly
important when the normal patterns of weather cycles people are accustomed to –
are no longer holding true. It is also to bring to focus, that faced with this
new challenge, new capacities need to be developed and deployed for the common
good of the people, more so for the vulnerable, and here failures are and will
continue to extract a heavier toll as the weather cycles become more & more
‘erratic’ or un-familiar from those observed over the last century. We should also keep in mind – which is
otherwise common knowledge – that for farming and also for disaster
preparedness, the temporal & spatial distribution (time and geographic
space wise spread) of rainfall is as important as the total rainfall, and this
is one of the aberrations that is increasingly becoming a reality, with the
number of rainfall days coming down along with an increase in rainfall
intensity on a lesser no of days. And it
is here the failures of the India Meteorological Department – IMD – stands out
more starkly.
Repeating its
2009 callousness, the IMD kept predicting a normal monsoon for the year 2012,
though as a reflection of a lesson learnt from 2009 – they also added that they
will closely watch the developing ENSO condition. This “normal monsoon”
prediction continued till early July – again with an unfortunate similarity
with 2009, in spite of atmospheric conditions over Pacific changing, and NASA
satellites monitoring the developing El Nino and putting the information in
public domains. The other global signals
– as highlighted in the first paragraph – were also clear. There was hardly any good or positive signal
from the Indian ocean dipole condition either. IMD also tried to assure the
increasingly restless farming community and the other ‘stake holders’, by
telling that the till-then deficient rainfall would very soon pick up and
normal farming operations can resume.
This in spite of the rule of thumb that for Kharif wheat & paddy,
July third-fourth week is normally the approximate cutoff period for enough
rains for sowing, with 2-3 weeks of minimum lead time needed for field
preparations. This is also dictated by the temperature regime and the time
needed for these crops to mature. Over
the years, more and more farmers in mainland India have developed some (though
not total – fortunately) dependence on the weather predictions by the IMD, in
addition to their own indigenous methods.
The problem is, with climate change, these indigenous or traditional
methods – which are based on long decades of observations of the connections
between visible natural signs and the ensuing weather – are increasingly going
off target. The lamentable failures of
IMD’s predictions adds on to these woes,
as farmers develop dependence on its predictions (see Economic Times Bureau
article dated July 25, 2012), and pay a heavier price – while the IMD gets into
yet another round of finding good excuses.
And it is not only in 2009 or in 2012 that we have seen this
farmer-hitting costly prediction failures, as the figure below illustrates, the
IMD’s reasonably correct predictions have come in less than 50% of the years,
almost like the throw of a dice – painting its “scientific claims” in a very
poor light. This is not a constraint of the science of meteorology, or the
present state of the art, as evidenced by the ability of other agencies to
‘see’ well in advance – as evidenced by the USDA’s GAIN report, by the
FRA-Japan’s reports etc. This is
indicative of the lack of expertise and effort on IMD’s part (starker in 2009
example), and unfortunate as we need a far better weather prediction success
rate while facing the challenges of a world with rapid climate change. The generous annual budgetary support to the
dept has not improved the situation, will the new Rs.400 crore “Monsoon
Mission” bring a better success rate ?
Fig. reproduced from Economic Times. In more than 50% of the years, IMD’s monsoon
predictions failed to be reasonably correct, adding to farmers’ confusion and
losses.
Since we are
close to the end of the monsoon season (in northern India at least, by Sept.
20), let’s look at the total rainfall in different regions of India by end of
July and also by mid-Sept 2012.
As a result of
this deficient rainfall, the major Kharif
crop planting has also suffered (table below), putting many millions of
farmers into distress. Which the table
below do not show is the amount of labour, money and other inputs that these
farmers have put in, depending the “Normal Monsoon” prediction of the IMD, and
the resulting financial distress.
Table 1. India:
Progressive Planting of Major Kharif Food Grains
|
(Area in Million Hectares) Crop
|
Planting as
of July 27, 2012
|
Planting as
of July 29, 2011
|
Planting as
of July 29, 2010
|
|
Rice
|
19.11
|
20.99
|
19.98
|
|
Corn
|
5.72
|
5.93
|
6.39
|
|
Sorghum
|
1.72
|
2.23
|
2.41
|
|
Millets
|
4.31
|
7.03
|
7.90
|
|
Pulses
|
6.30
|
7.39
|
8.18
|
Source – Ministry of Agriculture, GoI.
==================================================
Let’s take a
look back into what happened in 2009.
The picture we saw of a weak South West
monsoon,
unfolding as time went by. About 177
districts out of a total of 600 odd had been declared drought-affected. Some
more were facing drought-like conditions.
The ‘monsoon season
(June-Sept) was
a little more than half way on, and reports of farmers’ suicides were already
appearing from Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh etc. Any travel in the dry districts of UP, Bihar, AP, Jharkhand … showed vast tracts of
land lying fallow or with dried up paddy seedlings. And despite Govt. assurances of adequate
buffer stocks, retail food prices shot up so much, as to force the non-rich to
cut down on this essential consumption.
What went wrong
? First let’s have a look at the
rain-fall deficit for various regions of the country, and also for the country
as a whole – from monsoon-start period of June 1 to July 29, 2009 (this data is
taken from the IMD release of July 31
2009) –
Seasonal
Rainfall Scenario (1 June to 29 July 2009) –
courtesy IMD
|
Period
Ending
|
Country as a whole
|
|
|
|
North
|
|
03.06.09
|
-32
|
-40
|
-50
|
-14
|
-32
|
|
10.06.09
|
-39
|
-31
|
-56
|
-15
|
-44
|
|
17.06.09
|
-45
|
-26
|
-72
|
-21
|
-46
|
|
24.06.09
|
-54
|
-49
|
-73
|
-38
|
-55
|
|
01.07.09
|
-46
|
-45
|
-59
|
-31
|
-41
|
|
08.07.09
|
-36
|
-50
|
-40
|
-18
|
-34
|
|
15.07.09
|
-27
|
-43
|
-15
|
-12
|
-40
|
|
22.07.09
|
-19
|
-38
|
3
|
-6
|
-43
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Period
ending
|
Country as a whole
|
|
|
|
North
|
|
03.06.09
|
-32
|
-40
|
-50
|
-14
|
-32
|
|
10.06.09
|
-39
|
-31
|
-56
|
-15
|
-44
|
|
17.06.09
|
-45
|
-26
|
-72
|
-21
|
-46
|
|
24.06.09
|
-54
|
-49
|
-73
|
-38
|
-55
|
|
01.07.09
|
-46
|
-45
|
-59
|
-31
|
-41
|
|
08.07.09
|
-36
|
-50
|
-40
|
-18
|
-34
|
|
15.07.09
|
-27
|
-43
|
-15
|
-12
|
-40
|
|
22.07.09
|
-19
|
-38
|
3
|
-6
|
-43
|
|
29.07.09
|
-19
|
-33
|
1
|
-15
|
-39
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
So, this turned
out to be a ‘bad’ monsoon, as most regions had large rainfall-deficits, except
central India (which recovered late in July).
The grain belts of N-W & AP-TN were both badly hit.
What did the Indian
Meteorological Dept. predict, in its early or “first stage” forecast ?
First
Stage Forecast issued (by IMD) on 17th April, 2009
“IMD’s
long range forecast for the 2009 southwest monsoon season (June to September)
is that the rainfall for the country as a whole is likely to be Near Normal
That is way off the mark with the actual scenario, even during the
first two months of the S-W monsoon season.
But that can possibly be explained by saying that this was the early
prediction, Kharif sowing season was yet to begin, and the complexities of the
monsoon system before many indicators became clear, added more errors.
The late or “second stage
forecast” was issued on June 24, which is well into the kharif sowing
season for several states. It is far more crucial, as crores of
farmers depend on this to decide what to sow and when. The ‘climatic window’ of sowing kharif paddy
(which needs large amounts of rain water in 58% of India
And what was their late prediction ?
See below (taken from IMD release
of 24th June.)
“South-West Monsoon Season
Rainfall
IMD’s long range forecast update for the 2009
south-west monsoon season (June to September) is that the rainfall is likely to
be below normal. Quantitatively, monsoon season rainfall for the country as a
whole is likely to be 93% of the long period average with a model error of ±4%.
The Long period average (LPA) rainfall over the country as a whole for the
period 1941-1990 is 89 cm.
ii) Monthly
(July & August) Rainfall
Rainfall over the country as
a whole in the month of July 2009 is likely to be 93% of its LPA and that in
the month of August is likely to be 101% of LPA both with a model error of ± 9
%. The long period average and coefficient of variation of rainfall based on
the 1941-1990 data for all India
|
Area
|
Long period Average (mm)
|
Coefficient of variation (%)
|
Forecast
(% of LPA)
|
|
All
September)
|
890
|
10
|
93
|
|
All
|
293
|
13
|
93
|
|
All
|
262
|
14
|
101
|
|
NW
|
612
|
19
|
81
|
|
|
994
|
14
|
99
|
|
|
1429
|
8
|
92
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
725
|
15
|
93
|
Please note that the IMD said that the most
crucial July rainfall will be just below normal, whereas the important Aug.
rainfall will be above that. Not really alarming or bad for paddy sowing. Only N-W India was ‘predicted’ to be having a significant
shortfall.
As late as July 31, IMD was still assuring –
wrongly it now seems clear – that the rainfall in August will pick-up fully and
there’s no cause for worry. The same
‘assurance’ was given by even the Minister for Agriculture! Even in their very
late ‘prediction’ released on Aug.07/2009, the total rainfall was pegged down
to 87% of the Long Period Average !!
So, again, WHAT WENT SO WRONG ? Was there any clear meteorological
indication(s) available of the possibility of a weak S-W monsoon ? Was IMD aware of such a possibility ? The answer to both seems to be “YES”. How do
we say that ?
Let us first look at IMDs own report, where it
is clear that they were aware that El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions
were developing in equatorial Pacific, starting in May 2009 itself. El Nino conditions, or warming of sea surface
in the equatorial Pacific, is known to weaken the south Asian summer monsoon,
subject to a few other conditions, as they noted in their same June 24 release--
“Since the middle
of April, 2009, ENSO neutral conditions are prevailing with positive SST anomalies** observed over the equatorial Pacific from
the beginning of May. The latest observations and forecasts from both
dynamical and statistical models suggest
high probability (about 60%) for El Nino conditions to appear during the
monsoon season. The probability for ENSO neutral conditions is about 40%
and that for La Nina is negligible.
It is important to note that other factors such as the Indian Ocean Sea India Indian Ocean
Dipole. “
(** “Positive SST anomalies” means higher than normal
Sea Surface Temperatures).
The developing El Nino conditions, along with the
absence of any countering sea surface temperature condition in the Indian Ocean
(as happened in 1997, thus preventing a drought in India despite El Nino
conditions in that year) , should have alerted any professional agency - and
IMD is supposed to be a “Big One” – about strong possibility of a weak S-W monsoon.
The US Dept of Agriculture, in its Global Agricultural Information
Network (GAIN) Report (no. IN9086), released on 29th June, did exactly that. They
also repeatedly warned that the “window” of kharif paddy sowing, as well as those for corn, sorghum,
millet etc will soon end, with even an warning of a possible drought. A quote from that report --
“The
window of opportunity for
planting of most kharif crops (rice, coarse grains, soybeans, peanut,
cotton, and pulses) will be over by mid-July. If rains come in the next one week, planting operations will pick up.
Otherwise the country will be heading for a drought, which could be more
serious than the 2002 drought, which resulted in significant crop losses.
In some major rice growing states such
as West Bengal , Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Bihar , and Uttar Pradesh, the crop is mostly rainfed and
dependent on monsoon rains. Although rice is mostly irrigated in the major
surplus states of Punjab , Haryana, Andhra
Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the crop is still dependent on monsoon rains for
replenishing ground water reserves and reservoirs required for irrigation and
generating electricity to run tube wells. What is hurting the crop more this
year is high surface temperatures (4 to 5 degree Celsius above normal) which is
causing high evapo-transpiration. The lack of rains will also result in low
fertilizer application, which also will have a negative impact on yields. “
Yet, throughout
the month of July, the powers that be kept on repeating phrases like – “no
cause for concern”, “rain fall will pick up”, … and the media flashed these all
around the country, misleading all to the extent of little or no preparation
for the coming drought !! Only towards the 2nd
week of August (damage already done), did the Govt. admit and start preparing !!
The NASA MODIS
satellite images, showing El Nino conditions developing in equatorial Pacific
were also available to IMD (as they were to this writer, a non-specialist
science activist), from June2009 or earlier, and we attach these here. The
first pair compares the more developed El Nino condition on 25th June 1997 , with
developing El Nino conditions on 16th June 2009 . Notice the already warming equatorial Pacific
water (yellow & red colours) in the middle of the 2nd image,
extending from the coasts of Peru &
Equador –
about:blank
(Pic. Courtesy NASA)
A second NASA
satellite image taken in late July 2009 (attached below) more clearly shows the
El Nino conditions over the same area, indicating strong possibilities that the
rainfall during the remaining part of the S-W monsoon is likely to be weaker
than normal. That is exactly what
happened, with August rainfall till date (15th August, ironically
our Independence day, without any sign of the Indian people getting independence
from these ‘disasters by design’ !) being far from the 101 % of LPA that IMD
predicted !!
(Pic. Courtesy NASA) – Red & Brown shows
higher than normal sea surface temperatures
And farmers in
large swathes of the country, along with the poor & lower-middle classes,
are paying the heavy price of this careless (to use a soft word) folly of our
“professional” weather-men. At last the Indian Govt. and the IMD has woken up
from their callous slumber, and are sending messages like – “Weathermen warns :
Less rain” on Aug.10, or “Centre advises
states to adopt water saving technologies for Rabi crop” on Aug.13, thus writing off the most important cropping
season in India in one stroke !! And we are told that the livelihood of about
65 crore Indians depend on agriculture !! The other 50 crores are also
dependent on that food production.
A timely warning from IMD and the Indian
Govt. could have alerted crores of farmers, and prevented them from sowing
paddy where irrigation is scarce. Bigger
and more resourceful farmers have managed to save part of their crops by
spending large amounts of money in pumping out groundwater for irrigation,
leaving the smaller farmers even more parched. Those farmers in the 6 million
plus hectares, who have not sown paddy due to lack of water and left their
fields barren, have at least saved the sowing costs (and the debt from
moneylenders) and labour. A timely
warning would also have guided them to sow – when the climatic ‘window’ was
‘open’, crops requiring much less water, as they know well. Now they are
saddled with lost paddy in their dry fields, lost investments, lost opportunity
to get some return from other crops, and an empty future to look ahead to. Is it any wonder that desperate farmers have
started committing suicide (despite Govt. obfuscations)? It is not only the kharif crops which have
taken a big hit, rabi crops will also suffer, as there will be very little
ground water available, made worse by
desperate & indiscriminate pumping out to save whatever part of planted
crops. To make matters worse,
reservoir levels in most of our river-basins are running very low!!
We have not even
taken up the issue of possible changes in south-Asian summer monsoon in future,
due to global warming. Sophisticated
modeling studies (by Purdue
University
And it is not
only the always-abused food producers who are paying the price. Consumer Price Index for rural & manual
workers have gone up by over 11%, that for urban non-manual workers even more
(whatever the Govt. figure – one visit to the ‘weekly bazaars’ bears this out)
– all on the back of a weak monsoon and the anticipated food shortages.
Economic ‘pundits’ are predicting at least a one percent hit to the GDP growth
from this and the consequent drop in rural demand. The non-farming poor, lower middle class
& even the middle class are cutting down on food intakes, due to much
higher prices, which will have obvious health impacts. The appallingly shameful
45% malnutrition rate amongst our below-five children, is sure to jump to an
even more shameful figure, as possible alternatives to water-guzzling rice –
pulses/soybeans (protein sources now gone beyond the reach of most of Indians),
were not sown due to lack of timely rainfall information and the
non-availability of “kits’.
The IMD can say
that they were not “one hundred percent sure” about a weak monsoon, and they
will be right. But were they “one hundred percent sure” about rainfalls to the
tune of 96% or even 93% of the Long Period Average ? Obviously not.
So, why did they not come out openly with the apprehension – based on
clear meteorological signs – of a weak S-W monsoon ? This would have
prepared farmers across the nation to face a water shortage. Which caused far
more damage to the country & its non-rich people ? Was the
prediction-failure caused by a fear that the newly elected Govt. will loose the
“feel-good” factor if a bad monsoon possibility is broadcast ?
The Indian
people are paying a very heavy price, and they must have clear answers. If not for any advantage this time, at least
in the long term interest of the nation and its productive people. And
shouldn’t the people’s representatives – our MPs & MLAs, raise these
pertinent questions ?
========================================================
Soumya Dutta -Bharat Jan
Vigyan Jatha / Beyond Copenhagen collective
No comments:
Post a Comment