IITM and ARIES to Set Up Himalayan Climate Monitoring Station Under Bharat Network

IITM and ARIES have signed a long-term agreement to establish a climate observation station in Uttarakhand, expanding India's Bharat Climate Observation Network.

The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) and the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) have signed an agreement to establish a climate observation station in Uttarakhand under the Bharat Climate Observation Network (BCON), expanding long-term climate monitoring in the Himalayan region.

The memorandum of understanding was signed on June 18 as part of the Ministry of Earth Sciences' Mission Mausam project. This agreement is going to last over 50 years and would aid in conducting uninterrupted monitoring of the atmosphere and climate.

The observatory would be established at the ARIES campus at Devasthal, which is a high-altitude area in the state of Uttarakhand. As per the institutions, the site is well-suited for atmospheric monitoring.

The station will record meteorological parameters, greenhouse gases, climate-active trace gases, atmospheric chemistry, soil moisture, and short-lived climate pollutants. The observations will contribute to long-term datasets for climate research.

The agreement was signed by IITM Director A. Suryachandra Rao and ARIES Director Manish Kumar Naja during an online ceremony attended by scientists from both institutions.

The Himalayan region has been identified as an important area for climate observation because of its role in regional weather and environmental systems. Data collected at Devasthal will be used to study atmospheric composition, greenhouse gases, and climate variability over time.

BCON is a national climate observation programme led by IITM under the Ministry of Earth Sciences. The network is being developed to generate long-term climate records from observation stations located across India.

According to IITM, the data collected through the network will support climate research, climate assessments, and the evaluation of Earth System Models used to simulate India's climate. The observations will also provide reference datasets for scientific analysis.

Scientists from IITM's Centre for Climate Change Research and ARIES participated in the signing ceremony, including Suvarna Fadnavis, Yogesh Tiwari, Umesh Kumar Dumka and Priyanka Srivastava.

The Devasthal facility will become part of the Bharat Climate Observation Network, adding a Himalayan observation site to India's long-term climate monitoring system under Mission Mausam.