The Earth System Science Organization (ESSO) , New Delhi, operates as an executive arm of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) for it policies and programmes.  The ESSO provides overall direction for the centres/units and review the implementation of the programs. The ESSO was established in October, 2007 as a virtual organization, bringing all meteorological and ocean development activities under one umbrella, recognizing the importance of strong coupling among various components of the earth viz. atmosphere, oceans, cryo-sphere and geo-sphere.  It has four major branches of earth sciences, viz. (i) Ocean Science & Technology (ii) Atmospheric and Climate Science and (iii) Geoscience and Technology and (iv) Polar Science and Cryosphere.  The sole purpose of the endeavour was to address holistically various aspects relating to earth processes for understanding the variability of earth system.

The ESSO is primarily aimed to develop and improve capability to forecast, weather, climate and hazard related phenomena for social, economic and environmental benefits including addressing aspects relating to climate change science, and climate services.  ESSO is also responsible for development of technology towards the exploration and exploitation of marine resources in a sustainable way for the socio-economic benefit of the society by taking into account the global developments in the field of marine environment.  One of the mandates of ESSO is also to promote research in polar science of both Antarctic and Arctic Regions to understand the various phenomenon and processes of these regions on global climate and weather, in particularly on the Indian Ocean.

The overall vision of the ESSO is to excel in knowledge and technology enterprise for the earth system science realm towards socio-economic benefit of the Indian sub-continent and in the Indian Ocean region.  It has three major components :

• Provide scientific and technical support for both academic and applied research in Earth System sciences as a whole comprising the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and the geosphere, with particular reference to the Indian sub-continent and the surrounding oceans as well as the Polar Regions.

• Provide the Nation with the best possible services in forecasting the monsoons and other weather/climate parameters, ocean state including early warnings to natural disasters like storm surge, earthquakes, tsunamis and other phenomena through well integrated programs.

• Support science and technology development for exploration and exploitation of ocean resources (living and non-living), ensuring their sustainable utilization.

These polices/programmes are being pursued through its following centres :

1. Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology (CMLRE)
2. National Center of Coastal Research (NCCR)
3. National Center for Seismology (NCS)
4. National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF)
5.  India Meteorological Department (IMD)
6. National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT)
7. Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS)
8. National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR)
9. Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM)
10. National Center for Earth Sceince Studies(NCESS)

Under the framework of ESSO, a well established mechanism has been put in place to review and monitor the various programs on half-yearly basis, which are generally held in the month of April and October. The primary objective of the review mechanism is to formulate proposals for Annual Plan and apply a mid course corrections, if required.