Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

Radar facility gearing to play crucial role

By Our Special Correspondent

TIRUPATI Nov. 19. The National MST Radar Facility (NMRF), Tirupati, is gearing itself up to form an International Tropical Network of Radars to study Equatorial Atmospheric Waves, Annual and Semi Annual Oscillations (SAO), Quasi Biennial Oscillations (QBO) and Walker Circulations. Good monsoons (Indian monsoons) are associated with more intense Hadley circulations and relatively weak Walker Circulations, while weak monsoons occur when the Walker Circulation is strong and the Hadley Circulation is weak, says D.Narayana Rao, Director of the NMRF in an interview to The Hindu on the eve of the SV University's Golden Jubilee Celebrations scheduled to be inaugurated here tomorrow by the President, Abdul Kalam.

It may be mentioned here that SVU also is one of the collaborators of the NMRF and the two institutions are in close interface with each other for various scientific programmes.

The NMRF, a national facility established at Gadanki, 40 km from ISRO, as the nodal agency is the second largest among such class of radars in the world. It was set up as a prime centre to carry out advanced research in atmospheric and other space-related studies both by domestic and international scientists.

Talking about the proposed International Tropical Network of Radars, Dr. Rao said that the radars available at Christmas Island (Peru), Gadanki (India), Bukkitingi (Indonaesia), M.U.Radar (Japan), Chung-Li (Taiwan), Singapore, Biak, Darwin and Phonphei would be operated simultaneously in campaign modes to carry out the studies with special reference to Indian monsoons.

Citing some of the significant strides made by the NMRF so far, he said that using the MST radar in the ionospheric coherent backscatter mode, it had been possible to characterise the low latitude plasma process in a much better way than before. A number of aspects of the low latitude ionosphere have been detected by using the facility, he said and pointed out that the results could be used for improving navigation and remote sensing.

Dr. Rao also cited the experiment conducted to study pulsars and solar eruptive events taking advantage of the large antenna of the MST radar. It is also planned to explore the possibility of detecting OH molecular line of galaxy, Dr. Narayana Rao said.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Southern States

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

• Naidu kicks off poll campaign
• CM accuses Cong. of backing naxals
• Govt. urged to continue with old system
• Too early to talk of alliances: APCC chief
• Lights, camera... chaos
• Suspected `liquor death'
• Radar facility gearing to play crucial role
• Discharge from Srisailam improves power situation

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu