Tamil Nadu - Chennai   

Training for students in weather monitoring

CHENNAI: Understanding the force of nature is no easy task. While climate change continues to tax the minds of the world’s meteorological authorities, natural disasters and extreme weather leave fisherfolk, farmers and ordinary citizens grappling with their losses, unaware of the science behind the phenomena and fearful of the future.

But the India Meteorological Department, sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology, is initiating a programme that it hopes will bring the benefits of science to villages and generate data that India’s top scientists can use to forecast weather and monitor climate change.

Students and teachers from 10,000 schools across the country will be trained to observe changes in weather, collect meteorological data and send results for analysis to the Meteorological Department in Pune, according to R.V. Sharma, deputy director-general of meteorology, Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai, who was speaking at the inaugural session of phase II training for Tamil Nadu schools at the centre on Monday.

Sixteen schools along the State’s coast in the southern districts of Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli and Tuticorin have been fitted with the latest meteorological instruments and a computer to record and transfer their observations.

Students and teachers of the schools, selected for their proximity to fishing villages, are in Chennai to attend a three-day workshop organised by the Aditanar College of Arts and Science to familiarise them with the processes of observing climate change, the history and science of meteorology, the use of instruments and communication facilities, forecast techniques and disaster warnings for events from cyclones to earthquakes.

The organisers hope that the TN-PROBE (Participation of youth in Real-time/field Observation to Benefit Education) programme will encourage students to pursue science and create greater awareness of weather systems in their villages.

“This is an excellent example of good synergy between experts in government and youth that will result in the creation of socially and environmentally responsible citizens in the future,” said B. Sivanthi Adityan, chairman of Aditanar Educational Institutions, Chennai.

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