Researchers in climate science are studying coastal inundation for developing a land-Ocean-Atmospheric Modelling System to make prediction in case of extreme weather events, said Prof UC Mohanty, Professor of Earth, Ocean and Climate Sciences at IIT, Bhubaneswar.
As climate change and global warming have been triggering erratic and extreme weather events, the coastal States in India have been found vulnerable, he said on the sidelines of a four-day national symposium on Tropical Meteorology (TROPMET-2016) which concluded at the SOA University on Wednesday.
“The IIT-Bhubaneswar has been working with a group of US-based scientists to develop such a model. This modelling will help improve the prediction on coastal inundation which is a major cause of loss of life and property in the coastal States,” Prof Mohanty, an acknowledged expert in climate science, said.
The symposium was organised by the Indian Meteorological Society in collaboration with the SOA University, the Government of Odisha and the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences.
Prof Mohanty said the endeavour to develop the modelling system with the group of US-based scientists is crucial as climate change has altered the rainfall pattern. “We now receive a huge amount of rainfall within a short window of time followed by long dry spells. Besides, the rainfall and storm surge during tropical cyclones seriously affect large shoreline populations causing destruction,” he said.
Asked about future projections, he said though the number of tropical cyclones in a season could remain the same, their category or intensity would be higher.
With global warming leading to sea level rise, inundation in a State like Odisha has to be studied, Prof. Mohanty said, adding that the storm surge on the southern coastline of the State from Ganjam district up to Visakhapatnam could be of 2-3 meter while a cyclone of the same intensity could whip up waves of 10-12 meter in the Baleswar coast in the north.
“It is because the sea is very shallow off the Baleswar coast while it is deep along the southern coastline,” he said.