Critical Failures of Indian Weather
Prediction in a Climate Challenged World
In terms of a farming tragedy, the drought in many parts
of the country during the 2009 monsoon season, was yet fresh in the lives of
our peasants, and it also took a significant toll on the Indian economy. Here
we must make a difference between large scale, inputs intensive industrial
agriculture – practiced in large scale in our grain belts of Punjab, Haryana
and to some extent in Andhra Pradesh & Tamilnadu also – which were affected
to a lesser extent (but still adversely affected) due to their capacity to
access powered-irrigation, from the roughly 60% of Indian peasant farmers who
still practice rain-fed cultivation, not necessarily by choice but largely out
of lack of resources. NORMALLY, one would not expect another drought
like condition so soon – in 2012, especially with no adverse ENSO (El Nino
Southern Oscillation) condition in the beginning of the monsoon season, but
these are not normal times in terms of the increasingly visible impacts of
global climate change. The beginning of
the year 2012 saw a severe winter in Europe, by some accounts – the worst in
the last 20 years. Unusual snow-storms
raged in southern Europe and also in north Africa. Rome and Tripoli – of all places, experienced
heavy snow falls. There was a large no of deaths in Europe from exposure to
extreme cold, in late January and early February 2012. This was followed by an unusually hot summer
in southern and middle United States.
Its grain belt was scorched, leading to a significant fall in the
production of corn, which combined with the US agro-fuel policy (of partly
replacing mineral origin gasoline by biological origin ethanol and producing
this from its abundant corn harvests) to create a global food crisis and food
prices shooting up, leading to heavy hits being taken by the poor & food
insecure in several countries. And in
the far northern summer, there are frightening decreases in the Arctic ice
cover, and very worrying melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which are
indications of things going way beyond normal.
The cold wave in Europe in the early parts of the year 2012
was caused largely by significant ‘incursions’ of the Jet Stream to the south
over Europe, which allowed the colder air from northern latitudes to invade far
south. Northern hemispheric Jet stream
is a large & strong band of upper atmospheric wind pattern between the
temperate & arctic regions, and normally flow fairly straight from west to
east – dividing the colder higher latitudes from the warmer southern ones, but
when and where they protrude either south or north for long periods, these
causes severe weather over these ‘invaded’ regions. The jet streams (both northern & southern
hemispheric ones), as is the ENSO phenomenon, are very much dependent on the
global patterns of atmospheric & oceanic heat flows, both of which are
undergoing fairly rapid (by geological time standards) and ‘erratic’ changes. And these are causing drastic changes or
‘aberrations’ in the familiar weather patterns.
This is also evident from the apparently increasing frequency of the ENSO
phenomenon, which were earlier occurring much less frequently – as shown by
evidence from south American lake bed deposits (ENSO is an above normal warming
of the equatorial waters of the western Pacific Ocean, from near the coast of
south America, and the changes in precipitation & other resultant effects
are recorded in the lake bed soil there).
This global warming driven climate change is an
unfortunate outcome of the energy intensive, consumption driven capitalist
economic model that the world seems to have grown accustomed to, but we will
not deal with that question here. In
this piece, let’s focus on the small farmers and other artisanal workers (including
fish-workers and as such) of India, who have to depend on the blessings of ‘normal’
or familiar weather, and how the scientific community of meteorologists in
India have failed to serve even their basic needs of reasonably correct
information. This is not to cut the
usual jokes on our meteorological predictions (which are not entirely without
justification) – as the challenges they face are significant, but to highlight
how it is much more critical to generate and spread correct weather information
to people dependent on such information for their livelihoods and also for the
nation as a whole, not least in terms of disaster preparedness in the face of
increasing number of devastating floods.
This is particularly important when the normal patterns of weather
cycles people are accustomed to – are no longer holding true. It is also to
bring to focus, that faced with this new challenge, new capacities need to be
developed and deployed for the common good of the people, more so for the
vulnerable, and here failures are and will continue to extract a heavier toll
as the weather cycles become more & more ‘erratic’ or un-familiar from
those observed over the last century. We
should also keep in mind – which is otherwise common knowledge – that for
farming and also for disaster preparedness, the temporal & spatial
distribution (time and geographic space wise spread) of rainfall is as important
as the total rainfall, and this is one of the aberrations that is increasingly becoming
a reality, with the number of rainfall days coming down along with an increase
in rainfall intensity on a lesser no of days.
And it is here the failures of the India Meteorological Department – IMD
– stands out more starkly.
Repeating its 2009 callousness, the IMD kept predicting a
normal monsoon for the year 2012, though as a reflection of a lesson learnt
from 2009 – they also added that they will closely watch the developing ENSO
condition. This “normal monsoon” prediction continued till early July – again
with an unfortunate similarity with 2009, in spite of atmospheric conditions
over Pacific changing, and NASA satellites monitoring the developing El Nino
and putting the information in public domains. The other global signals – as highlighted in
the first paragraph – were also clear. There
was hardly any good or positive signal from the Indian ocean dipole condition
either. IMD also tried to assure the increasingly restless farming community
and the other ‘stake holders’, by telling that the till-then deficient rainfall
would very soon pick up and normal farming operations can resume. This in spite of the rule of thumb that for
Kharif wheat & paddy, July third-fourth week is normally the approximate cutoff
period for enough rains for sowing, with 2-3 weeks of minimum lead time needed
for field preparations. This is also dictated by the temperature regime and the
time needed for these crops to mature. Over
the years, more and more farmers in mainland India have developed some (though
not total – fortunately) dependence on the weather predictions by the IMD, in
addition to their own indigenous methods.
The problem is, with climate change, these indigenous or traditional
methods – which are based on long decades of observations of the connections
between visible natural signs and the ensuing weather – are increasingly going
off target. The lamentable failures of
IMD’s predictions adds on to these woes,
as farmers develop dependence on its predictions (see Economic Times Bureau
article dated July 25, 2012), and pay a heavier price – while the IMD gets into
yet another round of finding good excuses.
And it is not only in 2009 or in 2012 that we have seen this
farmer-hitting costly prediction failures, as the figure below illustrates, the
IMD’s reasonably correct predictions have come in less than 50% of the years,
almost like the throw of a dice – painting its “scientific claims” in a very
poor light. This is not a constraint of the science of meteorology, or the
present state of the art, as evidenced by the ability of other agencies to
‘see’ well in advance – as evidenced by the USDA’s GAIN report, by the
FRA-Japan’s reports etc. This is
indicative of the lack of expertise and effort on IMD’s part (starker in 2009
example), and unfortunate as we need a far better weather prediction success
rate while facing the challenges of a world with rapid climate change. The generous annual budgetary support to the
dept has not improved the situation, will the new Rs.400 crore “Monsoon
Mission” bring a better success rate ?
Since we are close to the end of the monsoon season (in
northern India at least, by Sept. 20), let’s look at the total rainfall in
different regions of India by end of July and also by mid-Sept 2012.
As a result of this deficient rainfall, the major Kharif crop planting has also suffered (table
below), putting many millions of farmers into distress. Which the table below do not show is the
amount of labour, money and other inputs that these farmers have put in,
depending the “Normal Monsoon” prediction of the IMD, and the resulting financial
distress.
Table 1.
India: Progressive Planting of Major Kharif Food Grains
(Area in Million Hectares) Crop
|
Planting as of July 27, 2012
|
Planting as of July 29, 2011
|
Planting as of July 29, 2010
|
Rice
|
19.11
|
20.99
|
19.98
|
Corn
|
5.72
|
5.93
|
6.39
|
Sorghum
|
1.72
|
2.23
|
2.41
|
Millets
|
4.31
|
7.03
|
7.90
|
Pulses
|
6.30
|
7.39
|
8.18
|
Source – Ministry of
Agriculture, GoI.
==================================================
Let’s take a look back into what happened in 2009. The picture we saw of a weak South West
monsoon, unfolding as time went by. About 177 districts out of a total of 600 odd
had been declared drought-affected. Some more were facing drought-like
conditions. The ‘monsoon season
(June-Sept) was a little more than half way on, and
reports of farmers’ suicides were already appearing from Andhra Pradesh, Uttar
Pradesh etc. Any travel in the dry
districts of UP, Bihar, AP, Jharkhand …
showed vast tracts of land lying fallow or with dried up paddy seedlings. And despite Govt. assurances of adequate
buffer stocks, retail food prices shot up so much, as to force the non-rich to
cut down on this essential consumption.
What went wrong ?
First let’s have a look at the rain-fall deficit for various regions of
the country, and also for the country as a whole – from monsoon-start period of
June 1 to July 29, 2009 (this data is taken from the IMD release of July 31 2009) –
Seasonal Rainfall Scenario (1 June to
29 July 2009) – courtesy IMD
Period
Ending
|
Country
as a whole
|
Northwest India
|
Central India
|
South Peninsula
|
North East India
|
03.06.09
|
-32
|
-40
|
-50
|
-14
|
-32
|
10.06.09
|
-39
|
-31
|
-56
|
-15
|
-44
|
17.06.09
|
-45
|
-26
|
-72
|
-21
|
-46
|
24.06.09
|
-54
|
-49
|
-73
|
-38
|
-55
|
01.07.09
|
-46
|
-45
|
-59
|
-31
|
-41
|
08.07.09
|
-36
|
-50
|
-40
|
-18
|
-34
|
15.07.09
|
-27
|
-43
|
-15
|
-12
|
-40
|
22.07.09
|
-19
|
-38
|
3
|
-6
|
-43
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Period
ending
|
Country
as a whole
|
Northwest India
|
Central India
|
South Peninsula
|
North East India
|
03.06.09
|
-32
|
-40
|
-50
|
-14
|
-32
|
10.06.09
|
-39
|
-31
|
-56
|
-15
|
-44
|
17.06.09
|
-45
|
-26
|
-72
|
-21
|
-46
|
24.06.09
|
-54
|
-49
|
-73
|
-38
|
-55
|
01.07.09
|
-46
|
-45
|
-59
|
-31
|
-41
|
08.07.09
|
-36
|
-50
|
-40
|
-18
|
-34
|
15.07.09
|
-27
|
-43
|
-15
|
-12
|
-40
|
22.07.09
|
-19
|
-38
|
3
|
-6
|
-43
|
29.07.09
|
-19
|
-33
|
1
|
-15
|
-39
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
So, this turned out to be a ‘bad’ monsoon, as most
regions had large rainfall-deficits, except central India (which recovered late
in July). The grain belts of N-W &
AP-TN were both badly hit.
What did the Indian Meteorological Dept.
predict, in its early or “first stage” forecast ?
First
Stage Forecast issued (by IMD) on 17th April, 2009
“IMD’s long range forecast for the 2009 southwest
monsoon season (June to September) is that the rainfall for the country as a
whole is likely to be Near Normal. Quantitatively, monsoon season rainfall is
likely to be 96% of the long period average with a model error of ± 5%. The
Long period average rainfall over the country as a whole for the period
1941-1990 is 89 cm.”
That is way off the mark with the
actual scenario, even during the first two months of the S-W monsoon
season. But that can possibly be
explained by saying that this was the early prediction, Kharif sowing season
was yet to begin, and the complexities of the monsoon system before many
indicators became clear, added more errors.
The late or “second stage forecast” was issued on June 24, which is well into
the kharif sowing season for several states.
It is far more crucial, as crores
of farmers depend on this to decide what to sow and when. The ‘climatic window’ of sowing kharif paddy
(which needs large amounts of rain water in 58% of India’s agricultural fields
which are un-irrigated) --goes up to
about July 15 or thereabout. If rainfall
is expected or ‘predicted’ to be significantly lower, farmers without access to
good irrigation resources, use their back-up strategy of sowing crops that
require much less water, like Maize, Millets, Sorghum, Pulses etc. Thus it was critical for the IMD to make as
accurate a prediction as possible, and they are supposed to be equipped for
that with latest computers, sophisticated computerized models, access to many
satellite imaging systems, thousands of meteorologists …. This writer kept
wondering throughout July (and voiced this in meetings), what is the basis of
IMDs optimism ?
And what was their late prediction
? See below (taken from IMD release of 24th
June.)
“South-West Monsoon Season Rainfall
IMD’s long range forecast update for the 2009
south-west monsoon season (June to September) is that the rainfall is likely to
be below normal. Quantitatively, monsoon season rainfall for the country as a
whole is likely to be 93% of the long period average with a model error of ±4%.
The Long period average (LPA) rainfall over the country as a whole for the
period 1941-1990 is 89 cm.
ii) Monthly (July & August) Rainfall
Rainfall over the
country as a whole in the month of July 2009 is likely to be 93% of its LPA and
that in the month of August is likely to be 101% of LPA both with a model error
of ± 9 %. The long period average and coefficient of variation
of rainfall based on the 1941-1990 data for all India and 4 broad geographical
regions are given here along ßwith the forecasts:”
Area
|
Long period Average
(mm)
|
Coefficient of
variation (%)
|
Forecast
(% of LPA)
|
All India (June to
September)
|
890
|
10
|
93
|
All
India (July)
|
293
|
13
|
93
|
All
India (August)
|
262
|
14
|
101
|
NW
India
|
612
|
19
|
81
|
Central
India
|
994
|
14
|
99
|
NE
India
|
1429
|
8
|
92
|
|
|
|
|
South
Peninsula
|
725
|
15
|
93
|
Please note that the
IMD said that the most crucial July rainfall will be just below normal, whereas
the important Aug. rainfall will be above that. Not really alarming or bad for
paddy sowing. Only N-W India was ‘predicted’ to be having a significant
shortfall.
As late as July 31,
IMD was still assuring – wrongly it now seems clear – that the rainfall in
August will pick-up fully and there’s no cause for worry. The same ‘assurance’ was given by even the
Minister for Agriculture! Even in their very late ‘prediction’ released on Aug.07/2009,
the total rainfall was pegged down to 87% of the Long Period Average !!
So, again, WHAT WENT
SO WRONG ? Was there any clear
meteorological indication(s) available of the possibility of a weak S-W monsoon
? Was IMD aware of such a possibility ? The answer to both seems to be “YES”. How do
we say that ?
Let us first look at
IMDs own report, where it is clear that they were aware that El Nino
Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions were developing in equatorial Pacific,
starting in May 2009 itself. El Nino
conditions, or warming of sea surface in the equatorial Pacific, is known to
weaken the south Asian summer monsoon, subject to a few other conditions, as
they noted in their same June 24 release--
“Since the middle of April, 2009, ENSO neutral conditions are prevailing
with positive SST anomalies** observed
over the equatorial Pacific from the beginning of May. The latest
observations and forecasts from both dynamical and statistical models suggest high probability (about 60%) for El
Nino conditions to appear during the monsoon season. The probability for
ENSO neutral conditions is about 40% and that for La Nina is negligible.
It is important to note that other factors such as the Indian Ocean Sea surface
temperatures also influence the monsoon rainfall over India in addition to El
Niño and La Niña events. Forecasts from few climate models suggest possibility
of the development of a weak positive Indian Ocean Dipole event during the 2009
monsoon season, which may not have much impact on the Indian monsoon. However, IMD is carefully monitoring the possible
evolution of El Nino conditions over Pacific and the Indian Ocean Dipole. “
(** “Positive SST anomalies”
means higher than normal Sea Surface Temperatures).
The developing El Nino
conditions, along with the absence of any countering sea surface temperature
condition in the Indian Ocean (as happened in 1997, thus preventing a drought
in India despite El Nino conditions in that year) , should have alerted any
professional agency - and IMD is supposed to be a “Big One” – about strong
possibility of a weak S-W monsoon.
The US Dept of Agriculture, in its Global
Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) Report (no. IN9086), released on 29th
June, did exactly that. They also repeatedly warned that the “window” of
kharif paddy sowing, as well as those
for corn, sorghum, millet etc will soon end, with even an warning of a possible
drought. A quote from that report --
“The
window of opportunity for
planting of most kharif crops (rice, coarse grains, soybeans, peanut,
cotton, and pulses) will be over by mid-July. If rains come in the next one week, planting operations will pick up.
Otherwise the country will be heading for a drought, which could be more
serious than the 2002 drought, which resulted in significant crop losses.
In some major rice growing states such
as West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh, the crop is
mostly rainfed and dependent on monsoon rains. Although rice is mostly
irrigated in the major surplus states of Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and
Tamil Nadu, the crop is still dependent on monsoon rains for replenishing
ground water reserves and reservoirs required for irrigation and generating
electricity to run tube wells. What is hurting the crop more this year is high
surface temperatures (4 to 5 degree Celsius above normal) which is causing high
evapo-transpiration. The lack of rains will also result in low fertilizer
application, which also will have a negative impact on yields. “
Yet,
throughout the month of July, the powers that be kept on repeating phrases like
– “no cause for concern”, “rain fall will pick up”, … and the media flashed
these all around the country, misleading all to the extent of little or no preparation
for the coming drought !! Only
towards the 2nd week of August (damage already done), did the Govt.
admit and start preparing !!
The NASA MODIS satellite images, showing El Nino conditions developing in
equatorial Pacific were also available to IMD (as they were to this writer, a
non-specialist science activist), from June2009 or earlier, and we attach these
here. The first pair compares the more developed El Nino condition on 25th
June 1997, with developing El Nino conditions on 16th June 2009. Notice the already warming equatorial Pacific
water (yellow & red colours) in the middle of the 2nd image,
extending from the coasts of Peru &
Equador –
A second NASA satellite image taken in late July 2009 (attached below)
more clearly shows the El Nino conditions over the same area, indicating strong
possibilities that the rainfall during the remaining part of the S-W monsoon is
likely to be weaker than normal.
That is exactly what happened, with August rainfall till date (15th
August, ironically our Independence day, without any sign of the Indian people
getting independence from these ‘disasters by design’ !) being far from the 101
% of LPA that IMD predicted !!
And farmers in large swathes of the country, along with the poor & lower-middle
classes, are paying the heavy price of this careless (to use a soft word) folly
of our “professional” weather-men. At last the Indian Govt. and the IMD has
woken up from their callous slumber, and are sending messages like –
“Weathermen warns : Less rain” on Aug.10, or “Centre advises states to adopt water saving
technologies for Rabi crop” on Aug.13, thus
writing off the most important cropping season in India in one stroke !! And we
are told that the livelihood of about 65 crore Indians depend on agriculture !!
The other 50 crores are also dependent on that food production.
A timely warning from
IMD and the Indian Govt. could have alerted crores of farmers, and prevented
them from sowing paddy where irrigation is scarce. Bigger and more resourceful farmers have
managed to save part of their crops by spending large amounts of money in
pumping out groundwater for irrigation, leaving the smaller farmers even more
parched. Those farmers in the 6 million plus hectares, who have not sown paddy due
to lack of water and left their fields barren, have at least saved the sowing
costs (and the debt from moneylenders) and labour. A timely warning would also have guided them
to sow – when the climatic ‘window’ was ‘open’, crops requiring much less
water, as they know well. Now they are saddled with lost paddy in their dry
fields, lost investments, lost opportunity to get some return from other crops,
and an empty future to look ahead to. Is it any wonder that desperate farmers have
started committing suicide (despite Govt. obfuscations)? It is not only the kharif crops which have
taken a big hit, rabi crops will also suffer, as there will be very little
ground water available, made worse by
desperate & indiscriminate pumping out to save whatever part of planted
crops. To make matters worse,
reservoir levels in most of our river-basins are running very low!!
We have not even taken up the issue of possible changes in south-Asian
summer monsoon in future, due to global warming. Sophisticated modeling studies (by Purdue
University, by renowned climatologist James Hansen at GISS etc) are indicating
both a backward shift in time, and a decrease of total rainfall during S-W
monsoon, along with change in regional & temporal distribution. To cope
with these changes – when they become prominent, we will need a dependable,
competent and sensitive weather agency / meteorological dept. Will we get that ?
And it is not only the always-abused food producers who are paying the
price. Consumer Price Index for rural
& manual workers have gone up by over 11%, that for urban non-manual
workers even more (whatever the Govt. figure – one visit to the ‘weekly bazaars’
bears this out) – all on the back of a weak monsoon and the anticipated food
shortages. Economic ‘pundits’ are predicting at least a one percent hit to the
GDP growth from this and the consequent drop in rural demand. The non-farming poor, lower middle class
& even the middle class are cutting down on food intakes, due to much
higher prices, which will have obvious health impacts. The appallingly shameful
45% malnutrition rate amongst our below-five children, is sure to jump to an
even more shameful figure, as possible alternatives to water-guzzling rice –
pulses/soybeans (protein sources now gone beyond the reach of most of Indians),
were not sown due to lack of timely rainfall information and the
non-availability of “kits’.
The IMD can say that they were not “one hundred percent sure” about a
weak monsoon, and they will be right. But were they “one hundred percent sure”
about rainfalls to the tune of 96% or even 93% of the Long Period Average ? Obviously not.
So, why did they not come out openly with the apprehension – based on
clear meteorological signs – of a weak S-W monsoon ? This would have
prepared farmers across the nation to face a water shortage. Which caused far
more damage to the country & its non-rich people ? Was the
prediction-failure caused by a fear that the newly elected Govt. will loose the
“feel-good” factor if a bad monsoon possibility is broadcast?
The Indian people are paying a very heavy price, and they must have clear
answers. If not for any advantage this
time, at least in the long term interest of the nation and its productive
people. And shouldn’t the people’s representatives – our MPs & MLAs, raise
these pertinent questions ?
Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha / Beyond Copenhagen
collective