What is Monsoon Mission Coupled Forecast Model (CFS)?

India’s new monsoon model, called the Monsoon Mission Coupled Forecast Model (CFS), has failed to forecast the excess rainfall received during August-September 2019. It was deployed by the IMD (India Meteorological Department) under National Monsoon Mission (NMM).

CFS model was developed as part of a ‘Monsoon mission’ that was underway for over 10 years and was meant to improve both short term as well as long term forecasts. While in 2019, India recorded its highest monsoon rain in 25 years, an analysis suggests that CFS don’t do better than the older ones in long-range forecasting.

About Coupled Forecast Model (CFS)

It is a dynamical model which is also called Climate Forecast Model (CFS). It has been developed based on a climate model developed by National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), U.S. and it has been implemented on Prithvi High Performance Computers (HPC) at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune.

The Dynamical models employ a different approach to forecasting monsoon i.e. they roughly relies on capturing the interactions between land, ocean and atmosphere and tracking how the changes in each affect other. The land, atmosphere and ocean state at a particulate time (generally March) is mathematically simulated on supercomputers and extrapolated into monsoon months.

About National Monsoon Mission (NMM)

It was has launched by Union Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES). The Ministry has bestowed the responsibility of execution and coordination of this mission to Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune.

The project is worth Rs.1200 crore.

Mission Objective:

To build an ocean atmospheric model for –

• Improved prediction of monsoon rainfall on extended range to seasonal time scale of up to 16 days to about one season
• Improved prediction of rainfall, temperature as well as extreme weather events on short to medium range time scale up to 15 days

Month: Current Affairs - October, 2019