The climate related problems of South Asian countries are influenced by similar large scale atmospheric circulations. With the advent of ocean-atmosphere coupled global climate models and with a large volume of observed data available for this region for over two centuries, a range of climate services are now being demanded by Government planners and the hazard mitigation community across the entire south Asian region.

Two recently concluded training workshops cum joint monsoon seasonal prediction exercises in 2010 and 2011, named as SASCOF, evoked encouraging response from neighbouring countries. The RCC shall be built around such interactions.

Assimilation of diverse kinds of observational information covering meteorological variables, atmospheric composition of trace gases and aerosols, sea level, cryospheric and biospheric information etc is essential to the assessment of climate and climate impacts in months to years and to decadal scales of time. A centralized approach to data management, GIS processing and applied analyses are absolutely necessary.

a) Objectives:

1. To create facilities for providing Climate Services through the establishment of a Regional Climate Centre (RCC)-South Asia of the WMO, within IMD.
2. To cater to the need of a comprehensive set of specialized climate services for the country and for South Asia as a region identified with the South West Monsoon climate.

b) Participating Institutions:

1. India Meteorological Department, New Delhi
2. Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune.

c) Implementation Plan:

1. Continued development of statistical and hybrid Prediction models for the region.
2. The centre in co-ordination with the neighboring countries shall develop high quality regional climate data bases that will be helpful in studying the regional climate change issues and their impacts.
3. Support regional modeling studies using the regional data base to achieve higher resolution and accuracies of predictions.
4. To issue information pertaining to drought monitoring.
5. To generate value added products like comfort indices, heat stress indices, air quality.
6. To set up joint studies with ICMR on understanding climate – disease relationships to develop advisory services.
7. To rescue and retro-convert old data and charts and create Web based archives with user friendly front end

d) Deliverables:

• Build and operate national and regional scale climate services

e) Budget requirement

including foreign exchange component : 60.00 crore

(Rs. In crores)

1. Build and operate national and regional scale climate services