Soon, predicting monsoon will become easier as Indian scientists along with their British counterparts will release underwater robots in the Bay of Bengal to monitor how ocean conditions influence monsoon. Hence, this can help in better predictions of the rainfall.
Monsoon is an important factor that affects the livelihood of millions of farmers and agricultural labourers across the country. Many states are facing an acute shortage of water, which means the farmers are dependent almost entirely on the monsoon rains. More precise predictions of the monsoon that sweeps up from the Indian Ocean, which extends into the bay, can help people better prepare for droughts and floods. According to the scientists, if the underwater robots could accurately predict the reach of monsoon, it will be a boon for the farmers in India.
The scientists from the University of East Anglia (UEA) will deploy seven underwater robots into the Bay of Bengal from an Indian ship during next week. These robots will study the changes in the ocean that influence the monsoon rainfall.
The robots, which have computers on board and look like miniature yellow submarines, will spend a month’s time under the Bay of Bengal moving through a southern section of the bay, measuring temperature, salinity and currents.
“The Indian monsoon is notoriously hard to predict. It is a very complicated weather system and the processes are not understood or recorded in science,” lead researcher Adrian Matthews said.
It is also reported that the scientists are also planning to fly a plane equipped with scientific equipment over the bay to measure the atmosphere as part of the multi-million-pound study of the monsoon which hit the southern parts of the country last week.
The scientists from the Britain’s University of Reading and India’s climate experts will use the data collected by the devices onboard the flight to analyze the heat and moisture in the air.
“Nobody has ever made observations on this scale during the monsoon season itself so this is a truly groundbreaking project,” Matthew said.