caos brochure

Centre for Atmospheric & Oceanic SciencesIndian Institute of Science,

Bangalore- 560012Karnataka, India.

email- [email protected] / [email protected]://caos.iisc.ernet.in

Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE

Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic

Sciences

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE

Production: Science Media Center at IISc

Design: Suneha Mohanty

Published: May 2016

Contents

1. Chairperson’s message

2. Origin and evolution of the centre

3. Faculty Members

4. The Support System- Office Staff

5. Facilities and infrastructure

6. Collaborations

7. Knowledge Exchange

8. Graduate programs

9. Placement and Career Options

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Chairperson’s Message

Welcome to the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences! In this brochure, we attempt to give you a birds’ eye view of activities at our centre.

Our centre was started in 1982 as the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences. As the centre grew, we realised that oceans played an important in modulating climate. Subsequently, our centre was renamed as the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences in 1996. Our centre has attracted an eclectic mix of students and faculty from various disciplines. We currently have 10 faculty and about 50 students. The centre offers M Tech in Climate Science, Master of Science in Engg – M Sc (Engg) which is equivalent to M Tech and Ph D.

Research at our centre revolves around the Indian monsoon. Various aspects of the monsoon, especially its variability at various space and time scales and more recently, the impact of anthropogenic activity on the monsoons, are major topics of research. Our researchers have used various tools for this purpose ranging from field measurements (sometimes in very difficult conditions such as the monsoon season in the middle of Bay of Bengal) to complex theoretical and numerical mod-els to understand this very important phenomenon.

Notable research from our centre includes understanding the subseasonal variation of monsoonal cloud-bands, the Indian Ocean Dipole, behaviour of the boundary layer over the Indian region, and characterisation of particulate matter (aero-sols) over the Indian region. Our scientists have been involved in designing satellites such as the Megha-Tropiques (an Indo-French satellite) for studying climate over the tropics. We have been involved in many pioneering field experiments to understand the Indian Monsoon, starting from MONTBLEX (Monsoon Trough Boundary Layer Experiment) in the 90s, through Bay of Bengal Monsoon Experiment (BoBMEX) and Arabian Sea Monsoon Experiment (ARMEX) in the early 2000s, and are currently involved in INCOMPASS (Interaction of Convective Organization and Monsoon Precipitation, Atmo-sphere, Surface and Sea), SWAAMI (South West Asian Aerosol Monsoon Interactions), OMM (Ocean Mixing and Monsoon) and BoBBLE (Bay of Bengal Boundary Layer Experiment). These field observation initiatives include use of aircraft, ships, ground stations and satellite measurements in addition to modelling efforts to understand this complex phenomena. We have taken a lead role in various international initiatives on anthropogenic climate change such as the IPCC (Intergovern-mental Panel for Climate Change), in which our scientists have taken a lead role in writing the assessment reports on topics such as monsoon and climate, the carbon cycle and climate and impacts on glaciers. CAOS works closely with the Divecha Centre for Climate Change (a privately funded centre of IISc) on issues related to climate change.

Our researchers have been involved in numerical modelling efforts to understand monsoons and climate change. Models have been used to study atmospheric and oceanic phenomena such as variability of monsoons within a season and from year-to-year, carbon cycle and climate change and behaviour of the ocean in the vicinity of the Indian region. We have been in the forefront of using High Performance Computing (HPC) techniques for atmospheric models. Efforts in this direction include scalable parallel implementations of models,grid computing and recently, the use of computational accelerators.

Our centre has been involved in collaborative research with various Indian and foreign organizations. Within the country we work closely with the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM Pune), the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). Collaborations with foreign academic institutions include those with Uni-versity of Reading (UK), University of Manchester (UK), University of Southampton (UK), Imperial College (UK), University of Massachusetts (USA), New York University (USA and UAE campuses), and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (USA).We have also been involved in research interaction with the industry on issues related to HPC and climate models. Our industrial collaborations include those with IBM, Microsoft and Intel. Currently, research on using computational ac-celerators for climate modelling is being conducted in collaboration with Intel and NCAR.

Our alumni have distinguished themselves in various fields: Some are now faculty at various IITs, others have proven their mettle in various research organizations in India and abroad. Our students have not confined themeselves to research, some have made their name in various commercial organzations including those that work in re-insurance and risk assess-ment.

In short, our centre has had a glorious past, and I am sure the future would be even better.

This brochure gives you a glimpse of the activities at our centre. For further information, please take a look at http://caos.iisc.ernet.in.

Origin and evolution of the centre

The Centre for Atmospheric Sciences was established by Prof Roddam Narasimha in 1982. He headed it until 1989. Acknowledging the fact that oceans influence climate, the centre was renamed in 1996 as Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (CAOS). The centre is within the Division of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore.

Research at CAOS focuses on the study of tropical climate, especially about the monsoon and how and why it varies. Since our country’s fortunes are tied up with the monsoons, research in atmospheric and oceanic studies, apart from being intensive, is highly relevant to our society and its future.

Research in CAOS spans many branches of study— atmosphere, ocean and climate sciences. As a result, faculty and students across different branches of science and engineering have been drawn to the centre over the years. Besides, institutes such as the Department of Ocean Development, the Department of Space, the Department of Science and Technology, the University Grants Commission and the Ministry of Human Resources Development have lent their sup-port to the centre through the decades. Researchers from the centre have participated in several national and interna-tional missions concerning climate change.

Over the last two decades, the world has gained new knowledge about the current state of the climate of the planet. There is sophisticated satellite data available to researchers. Several new observational platforms help in more precise observations. And of course, more powerful computer models and calculations help scientists understand the com-plexities of climate better. As a result, several new and unanswered questions pop up regularly in the field of climate studies. Besides, there is a demand for better weather prediction all over the world. Hence the scope for research and work is tremendous in this area.

Also, organizations like those working on earth sciences, space programmes, scientific and industrial research and even the armed forces need scientists and engineers who have been trained in atmospheric and earth sciences. Agriculture, aviation, energy, insurance and finance, oil and gas exploration, risk management—these are other sectors that need industrial applications which the research at CAOS can fuel.

In order to train scientists and engineers, the centre offers graduate academic programmes—MTech in Climate Science, MSc Engineering (by research) and PhD programmes, and welcomes teaching faculty from across disciplines. Alumni of the centre are working and studying in reputed institutes both in India and abroad.

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FACULTY MEMBERS

Prof Ravi Shankar Nanjundiah studied B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Rani Durgavati University, Jabalpur in 1984. After that, he obtained an M.E. from IISc in 1986, and subsequently completed his PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from IISc in 1992. His main areas of research comprise of the study of the monsoons and their variability using climate models. He also works on applying high-performance computing to climate modelling, and down-scaling climate data to finer scales.

Currently, he guides 2 MTech students and 8 PhD students at CAOS. The students are working on various re-search areas. Some of them include the study of how the monsoon varies within seasons and from year to year, the study of rainfall, clouds, and convective activity over the Bay of Bengal, different kinds of study of aerosols, how excess river water influences convection (rising air) in the tropics, and also a study of the atmosphere of Mars using a model.

Prof Nanjundiah was awarded the Sir C.V.Raman Young Scientist Award by the Government of Karnataka for the year 2000 in the field of Earth Sciences, and the NVIDIA Innovation Award in 2013. He is a member of the Indian Meteorological Society, and was an Adjunct Faculty at the International Centre, for Theoretical Studies at TIFR. He was also the Associate Editor of Journal of Earth System Science from 2008 to 2014.

Recent Publications:

Karmakar N, A Chakraborty and R S Nanjundiah, 2015: Decreasing intensity of monsoon low-frequency intra-seasonal variability over India. Environmental Research Letters 10: 054018.

Vinaychandran P N, J Sharief and R S Nanjundiah, 2015: Impact of River Runoff into the Ocean on Indian Summer Monsoon. Environmental Research Letters.10: 054008.

Govardhan G, R S Nanjundiah, S K Satheesh, K K Moorthy and V R Kotamurthi. 2015: Performance of WRF-Chem over Indian region: Comparison with measurements Accepted for Publication in Journal of Earth System Science.

His latest publications of chapters in books:

Rajeevan, M and R S Nanjundiah, 2009: Coupled Model Simulations of Twentieth Century Climate of the In-dian Summer Monsoon. In Current Trends in Science, Platinum Jubilee Special Publication of Indian Academy of Sciences, pages 537-561 Ed: A Bhattacharyya, S R Shetye and V K Gaur.

Vinaychandran, P N and R S Nanjundiah, 2007: Association between Indonesian Rainfall and the Indian Ocean dipole in Understanding and Forecasting of Monsoons. P N Vinaychandran (Ed). Centre for Science and Tech-nology of the Non- Aligned and Other Developing Countries (NAM S & T Centre), New Delhi.

Ravi Shankar Nanjundiah

Professor and Chairman, Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru

After obtaining his B.Tech from IIT Bombay (Mechanical Engineering), Prof. Bhat studied M.E (Mechanical En-gineering) and PhD (Aerospace Engineering) at IISc, Bengaluru. Prof. Bhat joined service at IISc as a Scientific Assistant and then served as Scientific Officer, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor. He was the Chairman of CAOS during 2006-2013. Prof. Bhat’s research interests include Tropical convection, cloud physics and dynamics, atmospheric boundary layer, laboratory modeling of atmospheric phenomena, field experiments, ocean-atmosphere coupling, and intraseasonal oscillations. He has carried out laboratory experiments, field ob-servations (over the Indian subcontinent and surrounding seas), theoretical studies and data analysis. He was the Principal Investigator for the atmospheric component in the three Indian national observational monsoon experi-ments under the Indian Climate Research Programme (ICRP): the Bay of Bengal Monsoon Experiment (BOBMEX) carried out during July-August 1999, the Arabian Sea Monsoon Experiment (ARMEX), carried out over the west coast of India and Arabian Sea during 2002-2003, and the Continental Tropical Convergence Zone (CTCZ) experi-ment (2009-2016).

Prof. Bhat taught courses on Atmospheric Boundary Layer, Observational Techniques and Tropical Convection. Prof. Bhat has been awarded the Prof. Satish Dhawan Young Engineer Award (Earth Sciences) for the year 2006 by the Govt. Karnataka, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences given by the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, New Delhi, 2002 and J. C. Bose Fellowship, Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, 2010.

He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and Member of India Meteorological Society, New

Delhi and Ocean Society of India, Cochin.

Selected publications:

G. S. Bhat and Shailendra Kumar, 2015: Vertical structure of cumulonimbus towers and intense convec-tive clouds over the South Asian region during the summer monsoon season, JGR (Atmos) 120, 1710–1722, doi:10.1002/2014JD022552.

M. M. Ali, G. S. Bhat, David G. Long, S. Bharadwaj and Mark A. Bourassa, 2013: Estimating Wind Stress at the Ocean Surface From Scatterometer Observations, Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, IEEE, doi: 0.1109/LGRS.2012.2231937

R. Harikumar, T. M. Balakrishnan Nair, G. S. Bhat, Shailesh Nayak, Venkat Sheshu Reddem and S. S. C. She-noi, 2013: Ship-Mounted Real-Time Surface Observational System on board Indian Vessels for Validation and Refinement of Model Forcing Fields, J. Ocean. Atmos. Technol., 30, 626-637.

G.S. Bhat and R. Jagannathan, 2012: Moisture depletion in the surface layer in response to an annular solar eclipse. J. Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 80, 60–67.

G S Bhat

Professor, Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru

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Prof. Debasis Sengupta’s research interests are upper ocean physics, air-sea interaction and monsoon. One research focus is the influence of fresh water from rivers and rain on the dynamic (currents) and thermo-dynamic (salinity, temperature) state of the ocean, and on air-sea exchange of momentum, heat and water. Since 2013, collaborators from 20 institutions in India and USA are making new high-resolution observations from research ships, moored and drifting sensors and remotely piloted ocean gliders in the Bay of Bengal. This programme, supported by India’s Monsoon Mission and US agencies, will lead to better knowledge of monsoon air-sea interaction, and may eventually lead to improved forecast models. Training the next generation of climate researchers is an explicit goal of the programme. Prof. Sengupta is supervising three CAOS Ph.D. students: Dipanjan Chaudhuri and J. Sreelekha joinly with Dr. Jai Sukhatme, and Surajit Das jointly with Prof. Arindam Chakrabarty. He co-teaches Geophysical Fluid Dynamics with Dr. Jai Sukhatme. Selected publications:

Debasis Sengupta, Amit Tandon, Emily Shroyer and M. Ravichandran. 2015. The OMM-ASIRI Initiative in the Bay of Bengal. CLIVAR Exchanges 19(3), 35-37. A. J. Lucas, D. Sengupta, D, et al. 2014. Mixing to Monsoons: Air-Sea Interactions in the Bay of Bengal, Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, 95 (30), 269–270. H. Rahaman, H., M. Ravichandran, M., D. Sengupta, D., M. J. Harrison & S. M. Griffies. 2014. Development of a regional model for the North Indian Ocean. Ocean Modelling, 75, 1-19. A. Gangopadhyay, G. N. Bharath Raj, A. H. Chaudhuri, M. T. Babu, D. Sengupta. 2013. On the nature of me-andering of the springtime western boundary current in the Bay of Bengal. Geophysical Research Letters, 40(10), 2188-2193. Debasis Sengupta, G. Bharath Raj, D. S. Anitha. 2008. Cyclone-induced mixing does not cool SST in the post-monsoon North Bay of Bengal. Atmospheric Science Letters 9 (1), 1-6.

Debasis Sengupta


Prof. P. N. Vinayachandran obtained B.Sc. (Physics) from the University of Calicut, M.Sc. from Cochin University of Sci. & Tech and M.Sc.(Engg.) and Ph. D. in Oceanography from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He gained valuable research experience from National Institute of Oceanography, Goa (as a research fellow), Univer-sity of Tokyo, Japan (as post-doctoral fellow) and Frontier Research Centre for Global Change, Japan (as senior researcher). He joined the CAOS faculty in 1999 and carries out research in the areas of Indian Ocean dynamics, Ocean modelling and physical-biological interactions in the ocean. He has the unique distinction of being expert in both ocean general circulation modeling and observational oceanography.

His current leading research projects are on oceanographic observations in the Bay of Bengal and modelling of physical biological interactions in the Indian Ocean, projects funded by Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India, INCOIS & IITM (Ministry of Earth Science). His international collaborations include University of Tokyo, JAMSTEC, Japan, University of Hawaii, University of Maryland, University of East Anglia and National Oceanography Centre UK.

He has received Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize from CSIR and Frontier Research Award for Excellence in Research from FRCGC-Japan. He has been elected as a fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Sci-ences, India. Prof. Vinayachandran is currently guiding Ambica Behera, Jahfer Sharif, Thushara Venogopal and Shrikant M. Pargaonkar for their Ph.D. and Anoop Nayak and Subham Rath for their master’s degree. Additionally, his research group includes Dr. V. Vijith, Dr. Amol Prakash and Dr. C. P. Neema as post-doctoral researchers.


Vinayachandran, P. N., D. Shankar, S. Vernekar, K. K. Sandeep, P. Amol, C. P. Neema, and A. Chatterjee, 2013: A summer monsoon pump to keep the Bay of Bengal salty, Geophysical Research Letters, 40 (9), pp. 1777- 1782.

Thushara V. and P. N. Vinayachandran, 2014: Impact on diurnal forcing on intraseasonal sea surface oscilla-tions in the Bay of Bengal, J. Geophys. Res, Oceans, 119, doi:10.1012/2013JC009746.

Saji N. H., B. N. Goswami, P. N. Vinayachandran and T. Yamagata, 1999: A dipole mode in the tropical Indian Ocean, Nature, 401, 360-363.

Shankar, D., P. N. Vinayachandran and A. S. Unnikrishnan, 2002: The monsoon currents in the north Indian Ocean, Progr. Oceanogr., 52(1), 63 119.

Francis, P. A., P. N. Vinayachandran, and S. S. C. Shenoi, 2013: The Indian Ocean forecast system, Current Sci-ence, 104 (10), pp. 1354-1368.

P N Vinayachandran


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Professor S K Satheesh obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of Kerala, and went on to do his mas-ter’s in Physics with specialisation in applied electronics from the same university. Following this, he pursued his PhD at the Space Science Laboratory from the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) and the University of Kerala. He carried out his post-doctoral research work at the Centre for Clouds, Chemistry and Climate from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

Professor Satheesh has published more than 130 journal articles and won a number of honours and awards; he was conferred the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize from CSIR (2009), Editor’s Citation for Excellence in Refereeing in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the TWAS Prize in 2011 by the Academy of the Third World (TWAS), Italy. Besides this, he is elected fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS), Indian National Science Academy (INSA), the National Academy of Sciences India (NASI), and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He is also ISBRI Fellow at the Indo-Swiss Bilateral Research Initiative (ISBRI), Switzerland and a NASA Senior Fellow at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in the USA. He is the associate editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research (USA) and Current Science (India) and member of Editorial Advisory Board of Atmospheric Environment.

With funding from ISRO, DST and Department of Energy, USA, Professor Satheesh has conducted several re-search projects. Currently, five students are pursuing PhD under him and one student pursuing MSc (Engg). His project staff include Ajay A, Hari Ram, Nag Arjun, Hanumantha Reddy, Arun BS, Arun A and Sowjanya S. In the past, Professor Satheesh has had 7 students working in his lab.

His recent publications include:

S.K. Satheesh, United Nations Climate Change Conference COP 20 at Lima concluded: what next? Current Science, 2015

K. Eswaran, S. K. Satheesh and J. Srinivasan, Dependence of ‘critical cloud fraction’ on aerosol composition, Atmospheric Science Letters, DOI: 10.1002/asl2.571, March 2015.

D. Narasimhan and S.K. Satheesh, 2013, Estimates of Aerosol Absorption over India using Multi-Satellite Retrieval, Ann. Geophys., 31, 1773–1778, 2013.

S.K. Satheesh and K. Krishna Moorthy, 2013, AEROSAT - A Space-borne Sensor for Continental Aerosols: Evaluation of the Conceptual Model, Current Science, 104, 1008-1011.

S.K. Satheesh, K. Krishna Moorthy and J. Srinivasan, 2013, New Directions: Elevated layers of anthropogenic aerosols aggravate stratospheric ozone loss? Atmospheric Environment, 79, 879-882.

S K Satheesh


Professor Govindasamy Bala received his Ph.D from McGill University in 1994 from the Department of Atmo-spheric and Oceanic Sciences. He spent the next two years in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton. In 1996, he joined the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (LLNL) in Livermore, California and spent the next twelve years there. He joined the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (CAOS) in 2008 as an Associate Professor and has been a full Professor since April 2014. He is also actively involved in the activities of the Divecha Centre for Climate Change.

Prof. Bala’s research focuses on various aspects of global and climate change. He uses global coupled and carbon cycle models to understand the links between land use change and climate, especially in the effects of deforestation on the hydrological cycle and the monsoons. He also maintains an active interest in exploring the effects of various geoengineering schemes in mitigating climate change, and their effect on the global hydrological cycle. He is also interested in questions related to radiative forcing and climate sensitivity and high resolution climate modelling.

Prof. Bala serves on the Expert Committee on Climate Change in the Minstry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. He is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee – Analysis, Integration and Modelling of the Earth System (AIMES) of the International Geosphere – Biosphere Program (IGBP). He also acts as an adviser to the In-dian Climate Research Network. He has also participated in the fifth assessment report of the Intergovenmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as both lead and contributing author.

Prof. Bala has published over seventy articles in reputed journals including the Proceedings of the National Acad-emy of Sciences. He was awarded the Scopus Young Scientist Award in 2008 was a co-recepient of the World Me-teorological Organisation’s Norbert Gerbier-MUMM Internation award in 2014 for a paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters entitled “Climate response on the time scale of days to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide”.

Prof. Bala’s group consists of about ten students and post doctoral researchers working on various aspects of climate change, geoengineering and land use – climate linkages.


N. Devaraju, G. Bala, K. Caldeira and R. Nemani, 2015: A model based investigation of the relative impor-tance of CO2-fertilization, climate warming, nitrogen deposition and land use change on the global terres-trial carbon cycle in the historical period, Climate Dynamics, DOI 10.1007/s00382-015-2830-8.

L. Cao, G. Bala and K. Caldeira, 2015: Fast and slow climate responses to CO2 and solar forcing: A linear mul-tivariate regression model characterizing transient climate change, Journal of Geophysical Research, DOI: 10.1002/2015JD023901.

N. Devaraju, G. Bala and A. Modak, 2015: Effects of large scale deforestation on precipitation in the mon-soon regions: Remote versus local effects, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doi.10.1073/pnas.1423439112.

Govindasamy Bala


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V. Venugopal obtained his M.S. and PhD from University of Minnesota, after obtaining an undergraduate degree from IIT Madras. Following postdoctoral stints at Centre for Ocean Land Atmosphere studies, Maryland and back at his alma mater, he joined CAOS as an Assistant Professor.

Prior to joining the Centre, his research work had primarily focussed on scale-invariance in rainfall and its appli-cations to statistical downscaling. Much of the work involved analysing rainfall observations and extracting self-similarity features in what appears otherwise to be a highly variable and complex phenomenon. These fea-tures and relations, if any, can help one to build parsimonious stochastic representations to resolve fine-scale variability of rainfall - relevant to hydrologic modelling - given its large-scale variability, typically available from general circulation models.

More recently, in the context of the Centre’s focus, he has shifted his attention to relatively larger-scale phe-nomena, although with the outlook being that of a stochastic hydrologist. Over the last decade, he has advised 3 PhD and 6 M.S/M.Tech students, and they have investigated the following research questions: (i) long-term changes in Indian monsoon rainfall; (ii) fine-scale duration characteristics of global tropical rain and how they can be linked to organised convection; (iii) diurnal cycle of Indian monsoon and tropical rainfall; and (iv) hydrological modeling of daily discharge for poorly gauged rivers.

His current research interests include space-time multiscale structure of tropical rain, changes in tropical ex-tremes, hydrological modelling, of both the physical and stochastic kind. He teaches Mathematical Methods in Climate Science at CAOS.

Selected Publications

J. Sukhatme and V. Venugopal, Waxing and waning of observed extreme annual tropical rainfall, Quarterly Journal of Royal Meteorological Society, DOI: 10.1002/qj.2633, 2015.

Ratan, R. and V. Venugopal, Wet and dry spell characteristics of global tropical rainfall, Water Resources Re-search, 49, DOI:10.1002/wrcr.20275, 2013.

Suprit, K., D. Shankar, V. Venugopal, and N. V. Bhatkar, Simulating the daily discharge of the Mandovi river, west coast of India, Hydrological Sciences Journal, DOI:10.1080 / 02626667.2012.674641, 2012.

Sahany, S., V. Venugopal, and R. S. Nanjundiah, Diurnal scale signatures of monsoon rainfall over the Indian region from TRMM satellite observations, Journal of Geophysical Research, Atmospheres, DOI:10.1029 / 2009JD012644, 115, D02103, 2010.

B. N. Goswami, V. Venugopal, D. Sengupta, M. Madhusoodanan and Prince K. Xavier, Increasing trend of extreme rain events over in a warming environment, Science, 314, 1442, doi: 10.1126/science.1132027, 2006.

Vuruputur Venugopal

Associate Professor, Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru

Dr Chakraborty obtained his Masters degree in Physics from Jadavpur University in 1998, and PhD degree in At-mospheric Sciences from IISc in 2005. He gained postdoctoral research experience from Florida State University, and was associated with short term research at the NASA GSFC and NCAR, Boulder.

Since joining the Institute as a faculty in 2008, Dr. Chakraborty’s research focused on the variability of tropical climate including the Indian summer monsoon. He uses various observational data sets and numerical model simulations to understand, for example, the impact of aerosols on clouds, and climate variability driven by physi-cal processes. He also works on the predictability and prediction skills of numerical weather forecast models, and its potential usability by the renewable energy industry in India.

Currently, he is mentoring eight PhD students and one Master’s student: A. Bhattacharya, D. K. Jain, N. Karma-kar, P. V. Arushi, S. Das, S. Agrawal, G. Srivastav, C. Jalihal and F. Jamil. He has strong research collaborations with other faculty members of the Centre, including joint mentoring of students. His students are studying indirect ef-fects of aerosols on monsoon intra-seasonal oscillations, diurnal cycle of convection of Indian summer monsoon, climate change and intra-seasonal variability of the monsoon, orography and monsoon, land-atmosphere inter-action and climate, Madden-Julian Oscillation in current climate models, interannual variability of Indian summer monsoon in sub-seasonal time scales and proximate and remote radiative impact of aerosols on climate.

Along with research, he also teaches Atmospheric Thermodynamics (August-December) and Fundamentals of Climate Science (January-April; along with Prof G Bala) at the department.


Karmakar, Nirupam, Arindam Chakraborty, Ravi S Nanjundiah, 2015: Decreasing intensity of monsoon low-frequency intraseasonal variability over India, Environmental Research Letters, 10, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/5/054018.

Chakraborty, A., Ravi S. Nanjundiaha, and J. Srinivasan, 2014: Local and remote impacts of direct aerosol-forcing on Asian monsoon, Int. J. Climatology, DOI: 10.1002/joc.3826.

Bhattacharya, A., Arindam Chakraborty and V Venugopal, 2014: Variability of cloud liquid water and ice over South Asia from TMI estimates, Climate Dynamics, DOI 10.1007/s00382-013-1978

Ramasesha, S and Arindam Chakraborty, 2013: Power generation using wind energy in northwest Karnataka, India, Current Science, 104, 757-761.

Chakraborty, A and R S Nanjundiah, 2012: Space-time Scales of Northward Propagation of Convection during Boreal Summer, Monthly Weather Review, 140, 3857-3866.

Arindam Chakraborty

Associate Professor Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru

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Jai Sukhatme completed his bachelor’s degree at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He went on to do an MS at the University of California, Davis following which he completed his PhD at the University of Chicago. He also worked as a post-doctoral fellow under the Advanced Study Program at the National Centre for Atmo-spheric Research in Boulder, Colorado and the mathematics department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Currently, he works at the Centre for Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences at the Indian Institute of Sciences, Banga-lore, as an Assistant Professor.

Jai’s research group consists of Joy M. Monteiro and Suhas DL, who are working on their PhDs, and Hemant Khatri and Arijit Chanda, who are pursuing their master’s degrees. He also co-advises Dipanjan Chadhari and J Sreelekha along with Professor D Sengupta. In the past, he has had eight students (Ajay Kumar, Jayesh Phadtare, Bodhi Chattopadhyaya, Karthik M, Anirban Sinha, Saibal De, Nihar Paul and Kaushik Reddy) working with him. Professor Jai teaches a course on Geophysical Fluid Dynamics with Professor D Sengupta.

His most recent publications include:

“Quasi-geostrophic dynamics in the presence of moisture gradients” in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society in 2015 along with J M Monteiro

“Waxing and Waning of Observed Extreme Annual Tropical Rainfall” in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society in 2015 along with V Venugopal

“Low Frequency Modulation of Jets in Quasigeostrophic Turbulence” in the Physics of Fluids in 2015 along with Suhas D L

“Interpreting the Upper Level Structure of the Madden-Julian Oscillation” in the Geophysical Research Let-ters in 2014 along with J M Monteiro, A F Adames, and J M Wallace

“Low-frequency Modes in an Equatorial Shallow Water Model with Moisture Gradients” in the Quarterly Jour-nal of the Royal Meteorological Society in 2013

Jai Sukhatme

Assistant Professor, Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru

Prosenjit Ghosh received his Ph.D in 2000 for research conducted at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad. He subsequently was a WMO-IAEA postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochem-istry at Jena and then completed another postdoctoral stint at the California Institute of Technology. He worked as an Assistant Professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo during 2006-07 and joined the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, IISc in 2008. He then moved to the newly formed Centre for Earth Sciences in IISc in 2008 and remains an adjunct faculty at CAOS. He is also associated with the Divecha Centre for Climate Change.

Ghosh’s research interests revolve around using stable isotopes to reconstruct paleoclimates and paleoenviron-ments. His topics of research include studying CO2 evolution in the paleo-atmosphere, reconstruction of paleo diets, understanding of extinction events, the stable isotope chemistry of atmospheric CO2 and the carbon cycle. He is also interested in development of new isotope standards for analyses of stable isotopes in air and solid samples.

Ghosh has published over thirty articles in various journals, including Science. His group consists of about twelve researchers, including nine Ph.D students.


Ritika Kaushal, Prosenjit Ghosh and Heike Geilmann. Fingerprinting environmental conditions and related stress using stable isotopic composition of rice (Oryza sativa L.) grain organic matter. Ecol. Indic. 2016; 61, 941-951, DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.10.050

Mousumi Chatterjee, Prosenjit Ghosh, Leena Ramdas and Ramananda Chakrabarti. Isotopic and geochemi-cal characterization of invader tilapia fishes from water bodies of West Bengal and Karnataka, India. Environ Monit Assess, 2015; 187: 712, DOI 10.1007/s10661-015-4929-0

Prasanna, K, Prosenjit Ghosh and Anil Kumar N, Stable isotopic signature of Southern Ocean deep water CO2 ventilation. Deep Sea Research Part II,: Tropical Studies in Oceanography. 2015; 122, 1-240

Tania Guha and Prosenjit Ghosh. Diurnal and seasonal variation of mixing ratio and δ¹³C of air CO₂ observed at an urban station Bangalore, India. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2015; 22,1877-90. doi: 10.1007/s11356-014-3530-3.

Prosenjit Ghosh

Associate faculty, Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru

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The monsoon isn’t by any means the most punctual or reliable component of climate in the Indian subcontinent. And yet, it is so very important for literally every walk of life, starting from the growth of agricultural crops to re-plenishing of the groundwater levels. This is what Professor Sulochana Gadgil has helped decode – what the mon-soon really is, and how it works.

Professor Sulochana started her education in Pune and completed her schooling at Rishi Valley, Andhra Pradesh. She chose to go to Fergusson College in Pune, where she obtained a master’s degree in the natural sciences, major-ing in physics, chemistry and mathematics. Following this, she was accepted into Harvard University. She started her career in India in 1971 at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, where she served as a CSIR pool officer for a period of two years. After this, she joined the Centre for Theoretical Studies (CTS), which eventually led to the formation of the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (CAOS). She currently works as an honorary profes-sor at CAOS.

Sulochana Gadgil

Honorary Professor, Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru

Roddam Narasimha

Professor, DST Year-of-Science Professor Engineering Mechanics Unit Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scien-tific Research, Bengaluru

Narasimha’s major interests have been in fluid dynamical problems associated with aerospace and atmospheric sci-ences. A connecting link between the two is that turbulent fluid flow plays an important role in both fields.

In aerospace problems, his recent work has focused on multiple transitions between laminar and turbulent flow on swept wings characteristic of modern transport aircraft, and on the design of optimal wing planforms for minimum induced drag on propeller-driven aircraft. The new wings can enhance the inherently greener characteristics of the propeller compared to turbojet/fan engines. International patents have been filed on the novel wing planforms.

In the atmosphere turbulent flow in the tropics has a strongly convective character, and the laws governing it at low winds are of great interest in monsoon predictions. New scaling laws for such tropical boundary layers have been proposed, and these have improved prediction skills in atmospheric circulation models. Cloud flows are a major area of interest. Recent laboratory experiments have successfully simulated the form, evolution and entrainment charac-teristics of natural clouds. These are being supplemented by direct numerical solutions of transient diabatic plumes. These developments promise to provide deeper insights into the important problem of cumulus cloud dynamics.

FORMER FACULTY MEMBERS

Prof. Srinivasan completed his B.Tech (Mechanical) from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Madras), M.S. (Mechanical) from State University of New York and PhD (Mechanical) from Stanford University, USA; has been associated with Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru since 1982 when he joined as an Assistant Professor. Since then he has served the institute in different capacities as Associate Professor and Professor at Mechanical Engineering Department of IISc. He has also was the Chairman of the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sci-ences (1996-2005) and Chairman, Mechanical Sciences Division (2005-2009) He is currently the Chairman of the Divecha Centre for Climate Change. Prior to joining IISc, he worked at the Mechanical Engineering Department, IIT-Kanpur.

Prof. Srinivasan’s research interests include renewable energy, Monsoon Models, Monsoon Variability, Simple Cli-mate Models and Satellite Meteorology. Currently he is also mentoring five students in their research and project work.

Prof. Srinivasan was the lead author in 2nd IPCC report on Climate Change 1994 and 1995, IPCC fourth assessment report, 2004-2007 and Review Editor, 3rd IPCC report on Climate Change, 2001. He is a fellow of Indian Meteo-rological Society, Indian Academy of Engineering, Indian National Science Academy and Indian Academy of Sci-ences. In 2012, he has been awarded Lifetime achievement award by Ministry of Earth Sciences.


D. Randall , R. Wood , S. Bony, R. Colman , T. Fichefet, J. Fyfe, V. Kattsov, A. Pitman, J. Shukla, J. Srinivasan, R. J. Stouffer, A. Sumi , and K. Taylor in CLIMATE CHANGE 2007: THE PHYSICAL SCIENCE BASIS, pp 589-662, S. Solomon, D. Qin, M. Manning, M. Marquis, K. Averyt, M.M.B. Tignor, H.L. Miller and Z. Chen (Eds.), Cambridge University Press, 2007

K. Eswaran, S.K. Satheesh and J. Srinivasan, 2015. Dependence of ‘critical cloud fraction’ on aerosol composi-tion, Atmospheric Science Letters,16,380-385,2015

Roshan Rao, H.R. Shwetha, J. Srinivasan and Sheela Ramasesha, 2015. Comparison of the performance of solar photovoltaic panel on dual axis tracker with fixed axis at 13oN, Current Science,108, 2087-2094.

Rajendran,K., A. Kitoh, J. Srinivasan, R. Mizuta and R. Krishnan, Monsoon circulation interaction with West-ern Ghats orography under changing climate, Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 110, 555-571, 2012.

M. Shravanth Vasisht, C. Vishal, J. Srinivasan and Sheela K. Ramasesha, 2014. Solar photovoltaic assistance for LHB rail coaches, Current Science,107,255-259.

J Srinivasan

Chairman, Divecha Centre for Climate Change, and Honorary Professor, Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru

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The Support System- Office Staff

K. N. Mohan

K. Shivasankara

Mr. V Raja Muniyappa

Mrs Radha G

H. Raja

Facilities and Infrastructure:

The Centre maintains a Geophysical Fluid Dynamics laboratory. This is equipped with a rotating table and convection tank designed for the simulation of extra-tropical and tropical circulations. In addition, the convection tank allows for the study of jets, plumes and thermals. The laboratory has a laser Doppler anemometer for flow velocity measurements, a laser based flow visualization facility, and a CCD camera for recording and studying the evolution of fluid flows.

• Aerosol Laboratory

• Boundary Layer Laboratory

• Computing laboratory

Mandhan Cluster

http://topsupercomputers-india.iisc.ernet.in/jsps/june2015/index.html

Cloud(CAOS) - linux based cluster with 112 cores for small scale modelling.

Cray(SERC)

SYSTEM

Description- HPC Clus-ter based on Intel Xeon Processor E5-2650V2 and Intel Xeon Phi 7120P X 2no nodes, 16 nodes, 128 cores, with total memory of 1TB, CentOS 6.4 operat-ing system, 20TB total storage with Lustre file system, nodes connected by Infiniband interconnect

Network- Infiniband primary and Ethernet sec-ondary interconnect

Node- Dual Intel Xeon E5- 2670v2 octo-core processor at 2.6GHz con-nected to dual Intel Xeon Phi 7120P X with CentOS 6.4OS, 128GB RAM.

BENCHMARK

Nmax- 33400 MPI- Intel MPI Compiler- Intel C0mpiler

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BoBBLE

● To Understand the role of Ocean temperature gradients on Monsoon

● Will uses 6 wave-gliders, 2 ships and an aircraft for these studies

● Indian Partners: INCOIS, NIOT, NCMRWF

● UK Partners: UEA, NOC, U Reading

● NERC-MoES initiative● CAOS Faculty: Prof P N

Vinayachandran● Approx Cost (IISc): Rs 6.8 Cr

4. “Impact of Ocean-Atmospheric Processes in the Bay of Bengal on the South Asian Monsoon (BOBBLE)”. Led by Prof. P.N. Vinaychandran, this is a joint Indo-UK project supported by the Minis-try of Earth Sciences (MoES), India and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), UK.

To Understand the role of Ocean temperature gradients on Monsoon. Will uses 6 wave-gliders, 2 ships and an aircraft for these studies

Indian Partners: INCOIS, NIOT, NCMRWF

UK Partners: UEA, NOC, U Reading

5. “Intel Parallel Computing Centre for Modelling Monsoons and Tropical Climate”. An effort led by Prof. R. Nanjundiah in collaboration with Intel Corporation.

6. “Stochastic Parameterization and Forecasting of Wind Energy in India”. Sup-ported by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), this project is being led by Prof. A. Chakraborty.

Collaborations

CAOS has more than 20 active projects that involve collaborations with other universities, the industry, national and interna-tional governmental agencies. The following is a small sample of the active projects.

1. “Mapping rice genotype and climatic condition using geochemical and isotopic technique”. A collaborative project headed by Prof. P. Ghosh (CeAS and adjunct fac-ulty in CAOS) with researchers in the Max Planck Institute, Jena.

2. “Climate Modelling of Geoengineering”. Project led by Prof. G. Bala with support from the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

3. “Coupled Physical Processes in the Bay of Bengal and Monsoon Air-Sea Interaction- Ocean Mixing and Monsoon (OMM)”

Aim is to study the unique air-sea coupling over the Indian Seas. Conduct high resolution mea-surements of ocean physics and surface fluxes (approx 0.5 km horizontal resolution, first of its kind)

An Indo-US collaborative Study

Indian Partners: TIFR, INCOIS, IITs, NIOT

US Partners: Wood Hole, Columbia Univ, OSU, U Mass, CSU, U Alaska, U Washington

Two ships : Sagar Nidhi (India), Roger Revelle (USA) are conducting simultaneous measurements along with buoys

CAOS Faculty Involved: Prof Sengupta, Prof Bhat, Dr Sukhatme

Ocean Mixing and Monsoon

● Aim is to study the unique air-sea coupling over the Indian Seas. ○ Conduct high resolution measurements of

ocean physics and surface fluxes (approx 0.5 km horizontal resolution, first of its kind)

● An Indo-US collaborative Study○ Indian Partners: TIFR, INCOIS, IITs, NIOT○ US Partners: Wood Hole, Columbia Univ,

OSU, U Mass, CSU, U Alaska, U Washington● Two ships : Sagar Nidhi (India), Roger

Revelle (USA) are conducting simultaneous measurements along with buoys

● CAOS Faculty Involved: Prof Sengupta, Prof Bhat, Dr Sukhatme

● Approx Cost (IISc): Rs 3.8 Cr

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7. “Interaction of Convective Organization and Monsoon Precipitation, Atmosphere, Surface and Sea” (2015-2018, INCOMPASS). Aims to study surface fluxes, rainfall and vertical structure of atmosphere during Monsoon Season. This will use ships, aircraft and ground observations and high resolution models

Indian Partners: NCMRWF, NAL, IITs, SAC-ISRO, NIO, INCOIS, NIOT

UK Partners: U Reading, U Leeds, UK Met Off, NCAS

CAOS Faculty: Prof G S Bhat

8. South West Asian Aerosol Monsoon Interactions (2015-2018, SWAA-MI). Aims to study of aerosol properties and its impact on monsoon over Indo-Gangetic Plain and northern Bay of Bengal. This will use 2 aircrafts, ground stations and models

Indian Partner: ISRO

UK Partners: U Manchester, U Reading, U Exeter

CAOS Faculty: Prof S K Satheesh, Prof Ravi S Nanjundiah

Chellakere will be a ‘super site’ site for this study

“Climate Research Facility at Challakere”. An effort spearheaded by Prof. S.K. Satheesh to set up an observational research facility at the new IISc campus in collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Department of Energy, USA.

INCOMPASS

● Aims to study surface fluxes, rainfall and vertical structure of atmosphere during Monsoon Season

● Will use ships, aircraft and ground observations and high resolution models

● Indian Partners: NCMRWF, NAL, IITs, SAC-ISRO, NIO, INCOIS, NIOT

● UK Partners: U Reading, U Leeds, UK Met Off, NCAS

● CAOS Faculty: Prof G S Bhat● Approx Cost (IISc): Rs 6.8 Cr

SWAAMI

● Aims to study of aerosol properties and its impact on monsoon over Indo-Gangetic Plain and northern Bay of Bengal

● Will use 2 aircrafts, ground stations and models

● Indian Partner: ISRO● UK Partners: U Manchester, U

Reading, U Exeter● CAOS Faculty: Prof S K

Satheesh, Prof Ravi S Nanjundiah



SWAAMI

● Aims to study of aerosol properties and its impact on monsoon over Indo-Gangetic Plain and northern Bay of Bengal

● Will use 2 aircrafts, ground stations and models

● Indian Partner: ISRO● UK Partners: U Manchester, U

Reading, U Exeter● CAOS Faculty: Prof S K

Satheesh, Prof Ravi S Nanjundiah



Chellakere Supersite

Climate laboratory at Chellakere

To establish a Climate Observatory for long term measurements of climate-relevant parameters.

To provide training to undergraduate and graduate level students as well as international level research opportunities for PhD students and researchers from IISc and other institutions.

This facility also can provide a platform for col-laborative research between Indian climate sci-ence community and their counterparts from other countries.

Facilities at Chellakere Supersite

Climate Laboratory at Chellakere

● To establish a Climate Observatory for long term measurements of climate-relevant parameters.● To provide training to undergraduate and graduate level students as well as international level

research opportunities for PhD students and researchers from IISc and other institutions.● This facility also can provide a platform for collaborative research between Indian climate science

community and their counterparts from other countries.

Facilities at Chellakere Supersite

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Knowledge exchange

Conference/Symposia/Seminars/Workshops:

Sl. No. Title of the Conference/Seminar/

S y m p o s i a / Wo r k s h o p / C o n t i n u i n g education programme

Dept. Duration

From – To

National/

International

01 Brainstorming Meeting on Radar Meteorology

Divecha Centre for Climate Change, IISc

25-26 September 2015

National

02 CTCZ -Subgroup meeting - Hydrology and Land surface

CAOS 17-18 July 2015 National

03 CTCZ -Subgroup meeting - Large Scale Component

CAOS 7-8 August 2015 National

04 National Climate Science Conference DCCC 2-3 July 2015 National

Talks

1. Title: Prediction of the Indian Summer Monsoon by NCEP CFSv at Intraseasonal and Seasonal Timescales Speaker: V. Krishnamurthy, Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA Date: 14 December 2015

2. Title: : Inverse Modelling for Reconstructing Unknown Tracer Emissions in Atmosphere : A Non- Bayesian Perspective and Application Speaker: Sarvesh Kumar Singh, Laboratory of Mechanics and Energy, Universite d’Evry-Val d’Essonne, 91000 Evry, France Date: 11 Dec 2015

3. Title: Marine Nitrogen Cycle: Present understating and challenges Speaker: Arvind Singh, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Kiel, Germany Date: 10 Dec 2015

4. Title: Prediction of the Indian Summer Monsoon by NCEP CFSv2 at Intraseasonal and Seasonal Timescales Speaker: V. Krishnamurthy, Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA Date: 14 December 2014

5. Title: Analyzing Indian Monsoon Rainfall: A Time Series Statistical Approach Speaker: Sarita Azad, School of Basic Sciences, IIT Mandi, HP Date: 9 October 2015

6. Title : Comprehensive Assessment of Climate Change Impact in Columbia River Basin: A comprehensive analysis of Climato-logical dataset Speaker : Arun Rana, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA Date 24 Aug 2015

7. Title: Global Space Based Inter-Calibration System Speaker: Manik Bali, NOAA, College Park, USA Date: 1 April 2015

8. Title: Advances and Challenges in Tropical Cyclone Track, Structure and Intensity Predictions Speaker: SG Gopalakrishnan, Hurricane Research Division, NOAA, Miam FL, USA

Date: 20 March 2015

9. Title: Differential Absorption Lidar to profile atmospheric water vapor, aerosols and clouds Speaker: Dr. Syed Ismail , Senior Research Scientist, Atmospheric Sciences Division , NASA Langley Center, USA Date: 17 March 2015

10. Title: Role of Indian Ocean Dipole dynamics in the evolution of mega El Ninos Speaker: Saji N Hameed , The University of Aizu, CAIST, Aizuwakamatsu, Japan Date: 24 February 2015

11. Title: Dominant Modes of Intraseasonal Variability in the Tropical Circulation Speaker: John M. Wallace, University of Washington, Seattle, USA Date: 17 March 2015

Lectures Delivered

G . Bala

1. SRM geoengineering and the global terrestrial carbon cycle, International Geoengineering workshop, Beijing Normal University, China

2. Effects of large scale deforestation on precipitation in the monsoon regions: Remote versus local effects, Fall AGU Meeting, San Francisco, USA

3. “Effects of large scale deforestation on precipitation in the monsoon regions: Remote versus local effects”, Annual Monsoon Workshop, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, 2-3 March 2015. .

4. “Key Messages from AR5 IPCC report on Climate Change”, IPCC outreach event, Doon University, Dehradun, 11 March 2015.

5. A model based investigation of the relative importance of CO2-fertilization, climate warming, nitrogen deposition and land use change on the global terrestrial carbon uptake in the historical period, ”, Fall AGU Meeting, San Francisco, USA

D. Sengupta

1. Upper Ocean Physics, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune

G.S.Bhat

1. Episodes of negative sea-air temperature difference over the North Indian Ocean during Summer monsoon: Possible mechanisms. International Symposium on the Indian Ocean, NIO, Goa

2. Marine atmospheric boundary layer. SERC School on ‘Fundamentals of Oceanic Processes and Modelling’, IIT Delhi

3. Errors / accuracies in observational data, Training course in Glaciology, DCCC

4. Marine atmospheric boundary layer. SERC School on ‘Fundamentals of Oceanic Processes and Modelling’, IIT Delhi

5. Observational aspects of the South Asian Monsoon 95th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society, 95th AMS Annual Meeting, Phoenix, Arizona, USA

P.N.Vinayachandran

1. Two lectures at SERB School on Ocean Modeling, IIT Delhi

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The graduate academic programs

Master of Technology (M.Tech.) in Climate Science : This program is designed for students with a Bachelor’s degree from any branch of Engineering, or Master of Science in the Physical Sciences. This is a two year program which consists of course work and a project. It is intended to provide a sound foundation in the theory of the atmosphere-ocean-climate system, and to develop skills in computational, data analysis and observational techniques. Details of the background, admission procedure, course content and career opportunities associated with this program are outlined here, the information can also be down-loaded here.

Master of Technology (M.Tech.) (by research) : This program is designed for students with bachelors degree in any branch of Engineering, or a Master of Science degree in any branch of science (with exposure to Mathematics either at undergraduate or postgraduate level). Students are selected based on an interview if they have passed a national examination such as GATE, UGC-CSIR NET or the entrance test conducted by the Indian Institute of Science. The program’s intended duration is two to two-and-a-half years. Candidates are required to successfully take 4-6 courses followed by research work that culminates in a thesis. On completion of the M.Sc. students may choose to continue for a Ph.D. at the Centre.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) : Requirements : ME / M Tech or BE / B Tech or equivalent degree in any branch of engineering including Atmospheric Sciences or M Sc or equivalent degree in Physics, Mathematics, Atmospheric Sciences, Oceanic Sci-ences. Candidates should have taken a course/paper in mathematics involving differential equations at graduate or postgradu-ate level. Those having BE/ B Tech or MSc degree need to pass a national level examination (GATE, CSIR-UGC, entrance test conducted by IISc, etc) to be called for interview.

Current students

Life in CAOS is far from being chaotic. This is my fifth year in the department, pursuing my PhD on terrestrial carbon cycle. The time spent as a part of the CAOS family has been a period of transformation for me. From the very first day in this department, we have been encouraged to think out of the box and come up with new, interesting ideas whether it is pertaining to a small project during course work or our research problem itself. New outlooks and ideas are always encouraged and appreciated. As my experi-ence goes, emphasis is given to not only go deep into the subject of study, as is essential for any research, but also develop our knowledge laterally, keeping abreast with any new development in the field of science and technology as well as the society at large. Since my work involves the use of complex computer models, apart from delving into the science, I had to develop my skills in using high performance computing and for this, facilities in our own department like our supercomputer ‘Mandhan’ have been of great utility. This I quote as just an example in our learning to cope with new challenges, even if we had no prior formal training or coaching. Apart from providing an opportunity to present our work at various national and international conferences, our depart-ment organizes interesting and interactive sessions within the department which are useful not only in broadening our perspec-tives about subject matters, but also in developing our oratory and managerial skills. Along with the freedom we enjoy as research scholars in this department, I have felt a huge sense of responsibility towards reaching out to the society, and it has become my aspiration that the research I do here benefits common man. I have now realized that this can be possible only when the freedom given is utilized with a strict sense of discipline in my day to day routine. I believe that I have evolved not only as a good researcher but also as a more disciplined and better human being during the past four years in the department, thanks to my interactions with the small but homely group of professors, staff and fellow students and researchers.

-Ananya Rao (PhD student)

I work with Prof. Arindam Chakraborty and Prof. Ravi S Nanjundiah. My work primarily focuses on understanding the space-time structures of several oscillatory patterns, mainly in intraseasonal scale, seen in the south Asian monsoon. It has been an exiting ex-perience for the last 4 and a half years in CAOS as the research environment is excellent and the problems dealt here have large soci-etal impact. Although the CAOS family is not large in number, there is a huge diversity in the problem statements of the researchers, including aerosols and their impact on the climate, atmosphere-ocean-climate modeling, geophysical fluid dynamics, monsoon variability and prediction, physical-chemical-biological oceanography and climate change, which allows us to know several aspects of the field while training ourselves. The Mtech students undergo extensive course work, providing solid foundation of the subject, followed by a project work. It has been a great pleasure to be a part of CAOS and I hope I will in touch with this family in future.

-Nirupam Karmakar (PhD student)

I had a unique experience of pursuing PhD at CAOS. The inherent complex nature of atmospheric and oceanic flows and lack of “con-trolled experiments” make it remarkably different from a conventional stream such as mechanical engineering in which I am trained. Naturally, the analysis of these flows involves a combination of modelling, observations, data analysis and theoretical analysis.

I worked on understanding physics of tall cloud systems known as the ITCZ. The ITCZ are associated with the variability of Mon-soons. I used a huge numerical model written in Fortran ( a bundle of 150+ subroutines) to simulate various physical processes governing dynamics of the ITCZ. The simulated ITCZ was compared with the satellite and ground based observations. I proposed simple explanation to understand the ITCZ variabilty. In the process, I learned new statistical and mathematical techniques. It was enriching to observe how a new phenomenon manifests from the set of same physical laws.

The faculty, infrastructure and environment at CAOS, IISc is unique and arguably the best to pursue climate science in India. CAOS has at-least 1 expert for different disciplines. This especially helped me since modeling complex phenomenon strongly demands equally good appreciation for different aspects and approaches. I think, apart from learning how to conduct research investigation, the training at CAOS was useful to learn about how to model complex systems and how to handle big data which has various ap-plications elsewhere.

-Vishal Dixit (PhD student)

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Placement & Career Options

Several universities and government organizations such as the Ministry of Earth Science, the Indian Space Research Organiza-tion, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the Armed Forces require scientists trained in atmospheric and oce-anic sciences. Further, as the economy has grown, there has been an increase in industrial applications of weather and climate information. Prominent sectors among these are : the agriculture industry, aviation, energy resources, insurance & financial ser-vices, oil & gas exploration and risk management. We expect this demand from the private sector to grow in the coming years.

CAOS alumni have gone on to work and/or study in reputed institutions within India and abroad. This includes ISRO, the Na-tional Aerospace Laboratory, IITM-Pune, INCOIS-Hyderabad, CDAC, TCS, TERI, Siemens, Intel and numerous universities and research labs in the US, Japan and the European Union.

Some of our alumni say-

Interdisciplinary approach to Meteorological sciences at the CAOS, IISc kindled my interests in this diverse field. As a Master’s student, interaction with the professors and fellow students broadened my horizons to solve problems using my engineering back-ground. The coursework had a good balance between theoretical sciences and field-related applications. This was supplemented well with course projects that helped apply my understanding to practical scenarios. While working under the guidance of Dr. V. Venugopal, I was able to gain insight into approaching and solving research problems. Thanks to my research experience at CAOS, I have been able to adapt to the research requirements at Duke University quite competently and am able to make significant contri-butions in the research group.

-Malarvizhi Arulraj (M.Tech, CAOS, PhD student at Duke University, USA)

I feel very fortunate to have studied at Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences in IISc, Bangalore. Although I am currently in a different industry, I still feel the foundations - in modelling, in the structured approach to problem solving and getting com-fortable in handling large data sets - that were laid during my two years at IISc have been very helpful to me in my career. Under the guidance of Dr. Jai Sukhatme, I enjoyed working on a complex yet fascinating problem on the monsoon low pressure systems. The culture at CAOS is extremely friendly and the faculty is very approachable and knowledgeable in complex areas such as fluid dynamics, weather and climate modelling. I would say my two year M. Tech at IISc was one of the best years in my student life!

-Ajay Kumar (M.Tech. CAOS, Manager, Corporate Development at HCG)

caos brochure

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