Seminar/ Colloquium

Title : Middle Atmospheric Response to the Changing Climate over Indian region.
Speaker : Dr M. VenkatRatnam ( Recipient of 2018, S S Bhatnagar Award in Atmospheric Sciences),
National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL), Department of Space, Gadanki-517112, India.
Date : 09/01/2019, 5:30 PM , C.V Raman Hall, Second Floor.

Abstract:

In recent days, climate change is posing unprecedented serious challenges that society has ever faced. There is now an overwhelming consensus that human activities have been affecting the composition of Earth’s atmosphere. The scientific facts are clear recognized by Nobel Prize in 2007 – that phase of climate change is accelerating and it is endangering our security and economic development. Its fingerprints on our planet’s alpine peaks to its ocean depths, from its lush plains to its arid steppes are already felt all over the world. Over the last three to four decades significant progress has been made in observing, understanding and to some extent predicting the variability and changes in Earth’s climate system. Impressive progress in climate science, reflected notably in the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007) provided robust findings on the cause of climate change and its impacts over the next decades.

It was realized recently that the perturbations in atmospheric parameters caused by various human activities is not only confined to the lower atmosphere but also most likely extends into middle and upper atmosphere. In view of this, it has become more important and vital to study the variations due to natural activities in parameters affecting climate and to distinguish them from perturbations induced by global change. Since the amplitude of any signals increase with respect to altitude due to decreasing densities, it is also believed that pronounced effects of climate change will be noticed at higher altitudes. In the present talk, effects of climate change on the tropical middle atmosphere with special emphasis on the Indian region will be presented. These includes climate change effects on surface temperatures, Indian monsoon rainfall and associated dynamics, troposphere warming and stratospheric cooling, atmospheric gravity waves and their effects on general circulation and climate, mesospheric effects due to changes in the lower atmospheric processes, etc., Latest observations and understanding on these issues will be presented.