International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 4, No.

1, 2012

Global climate change perspective

R.K. Giri India Meteorological Department, New Delhi -3. E-mail: rk.giriccs@gmail.com Abstract
Climate change and its impact is global concern nowadays and it is a multi-disciplinary framework. Unprecedented change results extreme weather events like snowfall by mid-latitude synoptic scale systems called western disturbances which affect badly over the Kashmir region during winter season. In this paper very heavy snowfall event occurred on February 17-21, 2005 is examined with satellite and numerical model based results. Key words: Climate change, western disturbance and NWP

1. Introduction
Climate change and its adaptation is increasing concern nowadays. Over the last to decades the significant change in climate is due to the human activities or anthropogenic activities. This unequivocal change in climate is predicted by suitable mathematical modeling of such unusual or catastrophic events. This is an integrated framework of climate change scenario in which interdisciplinary machinery is involved to maintain equilibrium in whole ecosystem. In this paradigm the GLOBE Student Climate Research Campaign (SCRC) aims to engage students in measuring, investigating, and understanding the climate system in their local communities and around the world. Drawing on GLOBE protocols and data, as well as other datasets, students take climate-related measurements and investigate research questions about climate. The unprecedented changes affect globally the climate. There is increase of destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years (Emanuel, 2005). Since the mid nineteenth century the Earths surface has warmed and models indicate that human activities have caused part of the warming by altering the radiative balance of the atmosphere ( Houghton, et al, 2001 and Rayner et. al , 2003). The extreme weather events of hot, cold, flood, snow etc. intensity wise are increasing. During winter time the weather systems comes from west affected badly North West (NW) India. These systems are called western disturbances. In the year 2005 from 17 -21 February all Kashmir valley badly affected by the quasi stationary system called western disturbance (WDs). This gives the unexpected snowfall over the Kashmir region. The highly variable mountain terrain of different altitudes and orientations in Northern India are responsible for complexity of the weather systems. The Himalayan region is frequently affected by eastward moving weather systems known as western disturbance (WD). In this paper a qualitative analysis of very heavy snowfall/rainfall in Kashmir in association with the western disturbance from 17th to 21st February 2005 is shown in the Table 1. Table 2 shows the number of heavy precipitation events during the time 1990 -2005. The total numbers of heavy precipitation events are increasing monotonically January to March and reduce after-words in April and May and decreasing thereafter. Indian Geostationary satellite (Kalpana -1) derived images and surface chart analysis play an important role to understand the system which caused highest snowfall of decade in the month of February, 2005 over Kashmir area. Numerical weather prediction regional models also capture this event and predicts reasonably good about the rain. To see the match with actual observations we convert the snow equivalent in water equivalent. The total amount calculated in this way and area coverage agrees fairly well with actual observations. Below some of the observational features have been explained with the help of satellite, surface and model derived outputs.

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2. Satellite observations
Fig 1 is the Infrared image of Kalpana -1 satellite in IR region (10.5 to 12.5 ) on 17 February, 2005 at 0300 UTC. It shows that Western Disturbance is lying over West Pakistan and neighbored. In Fig. 2 on 18th February, 2005 the same system approached over Jammu and Kashmir region. In Fig. 3 on 19th February, 2005 the system is quasi-stationary and persists over Jammu and Kashmir area and this was the main region of producing the heaviest snowfall over the Kashmir Valley. In Fig. 4 the same system extends up to East UP and produced rain and cold weather prevail over the area till the system persists. This is because it modifies the air-mass characteristics during the stay period. This semi-permanent type of features remains for few days and produce intense amount of snowfall activity. This is global phenomenon as WDs are generated as a frontal system in Caspian Sea or Black sea and travels long westward distance and almost lost their frontal characteristics till they reach over Indian region. This feature of the system is generally embedded with the long wave troughs and generates induced cyclonic circulations under the WDs area. 3. NWP observations: Regional Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models like Limited Area Model (LAM) is an important source of prediction the system persistency and movement by examining the model derived output parameters like total 24 hour rainfall in this case. It is seen in spite of complex rugged terrain topography of the Himalayan region the model predicts well the total rainfall and it matches fairly well with the actual observations (Table 1). The Figs (5-8) shows the 24 hour accumulated LAM predicted rainfall on 18 -21st February respectively. The model has the capability of prediction of 72 hour in advance, the accuracy decreases as the time increases, i e it predicts well 24 hour forecast and decreasing thereafter. Now in recent scenario, India Meteorological Department (IMD) is using Weather Research Forecast (WRF) model with its own global forecast model forecast as an initial guess field (lateral and boundary conditions) to WRF.

4. Surface observations
The surface data analysis is given in Figs (9-12). Fig 9 shows a well marked low pressure area over West Pakistan and neighbored on 0000 UTC of 17th February, 2005 and it progressed further and lying over J & K area on 18th February, 2005. This remains quasi-stationary till 19th February, 2005 over J & K area and produce heaviest snowfall of the decade. Later it progress further on East UP and neighbored and modifies the weather considerably.

5. Coverage viewed from MODIS

The USA polar orbiting satellite (Terra and Aqua) having a 36 band payload called Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) having the capability of viewing in 250 meters to 1 km resolution. The areal coverage of this historic snowfall is given in the Figs (13-14). The boundary shown in Figs 13 & 14 taken from United States Geological Survey (USGS) map data, in which the boundary of the Kashmir region shown differently as our Geological Survey of India data. It is clear from the figure that system produces heavy precipitation in the form of snow and rain over the large area.

6. Acknowledgements: The authors are thankful to NASA and MODIS team for providing the
MODIS image and Director General of IMD for INSAT image and precipitation data.

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Fig 1: WD over the area of West Pakistan neighbored.

Fig-2: WD lies over Jammu & Kashmir and Region.

Fig 3: WD persists over Jammu & Kashmir Fig4: WD shows eastward movement and extends region up to east Uttar Pradesh.

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Table 1: Fresh snowfall (cm) during 17th to 21st February 2005 Station Name 17/2/05 (Snowfall in cm) Srinagar Gulmarg 12 Himmat 24 MOP Hadan Taj 19 Banihal Top 23 Sonamarg Stage -II 25 Ragini N-C Pass Sonapindi 20 Z -Gali 19 Pharkian 09 Puttakhan Gogaldhar 07 Kanjalwan 54 Dawar Niru 24 Pant 50 Chakwali Drass Pathar 06 Firmbase 13 Kaksar Kilnala BLC 18/2/05 (Snowfall in cm) 08 23 46 17 20 27 17 08 26 29 30 15 06 04 08 04 06 08 19/2/05 (Snowfall in cm) 46 41 53 65 82 61 20 10 21 25 46 42 40 17 11 05 11 06 20/2/05 (Snowfall in cm) 42 57 100 45 47 40 22 20 43 11 23 24 25 15 07 03 19 21/2/05 (Snowfall in cm) 02 08 40 07 14 05 08 06 Tr Tr 05 Tr 03 09

Table 2: Number of heavy precipitation events occurred in Kashmir during 1990 February 2005.
Events category a b c Total January February March April May June July August September October November 15 04 05 24 20 10 05 35 26 03 09 38 17 05 03 25 16 06 05 27 14 01 00 15 15 03 01 19 17 02 00 19 06 01 01 08 07 01 00 08 07 03 01 11

Where, a = Heavy precipitation for one day, b = Heavy precipitation for two days and c =Heavy precipitation for three days or more.

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Fig 5: LAM Forecast for 18th February (03UTC) Rainfall in mm.

Fig 6: LAM Forecast for 19th February (03UTC) Rainfall in mm.

Fig 7: LAM Forecast for 20th February (03UTC) Rainfall in mm.

Fig 8: LAM Forecast for 21th February (03UTC) Rainfall in mm.

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Fig 9: Well marked LOPAR over the area of West Pakistan & and neighborhood.

Fig-10: LOPAR extends towards Jammu Kashmir region.

Fig-11: LOPAR remains quasi stationary over eastward and Jammu & Kashmir region.

Fig 12: LOPAR weakened, moved extends up to east Uttar Pradesh.

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Fig 13:

February 16, 2005 (Snow is in dark red and lighter orange)

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Fig 14: February 22, 2005 (MODIS Terra image) Courtesy to NASA

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7. References:
[1] Emanuel, K., Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years, Nature, 436, 686688 (2005). [2] Houghton, J. T., Ding, Y., Griggs, D.J., Noguer, M., Linden van der, P.J., Dai, X., Maskell,K and Johnson, C.A., Climate change 2001: The scientific basis (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK, 2001) [3] Rayner, N.A. Parker, D.E., Horton, E.B., Folland, C.K., Alexander, L.V., Rowell, D.P., Kent, E.C and Keplan, A., Global analysis of sea surface temperature since the nineteenth century J. Geophys Res 108 (D14), 4407, doi: 10. 1029/2002jD002670 (2003).

Author Profile:
Mr. R.K. Giri, received his M.Tech in Computer Science & Engineering from Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra, Haryana in he year 2005 and currently working as Scientist D insatellite division of India Meteorological Department, Lodi Road, New Delhi-3. He has written several research papers in the field of satellite meteorology and his main area of interest is image processing along with Utilization of satellite data in weather forecasting.

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