(a) whether appliances/computers available for making
weather forecast and gathering information about oceanic
climate and tropical climate are quite outdated;
(b) if so, whether the Government proposes to procure/develop
super computers to gather information about climatic changes in
the country;
(c) if so, the details thereof; and
(d) the quantum of funds allocated for the purpose?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF PLANNING, MINISTER OF STATE IN
THE MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND MINISTER OF STATE IN
THE MINISTRY OF EARTH SCIENCES(SHRI ASHWANI KUMAR)
(a) No Madam. The Government has always been upgrading the high
performance computing systems (HPCS) and associated infrastructure for
weather, climate and ocean data assimilation and forecast systems from
time to time since 1987. Recently, state of the art HPCS were
commissioned at India Meteorological Department (IMD) at Delhi and at 12
regional centres, National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting
(NCMRWF), Noida, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune
and Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad.
Under the Global and Regional Climate Change (GRCC) program, the HPCS of
IITM was further upgraded to meet the computing needs of coupled
ocean-atmospheric general circulation model to facilitate long-term climate
variability and change studies and to generate representative climate change
scenarios for the future.
(b) Despite the above, the existing HPCS capacity of about 125
Tera Flaps is not sufficient to meet on going operational testing and
research efforts.
(c) Meeting the HPCS requirements for the Earth System Science Modeling
and to carry out intensive frontline research is the priority of the Government
for the XII five year plan. To meet this critical requirement, the Ministry of
Earth Sciences (MoES) has developed a strategic plan that outlines a roadmap for
the MoES institutions to become leaders in the field of weather, ocean state and
climate forecasting in the next 5 years. The plan is to upgrade the total HPCS
capacity to 1-3 Peta Flaps level is next 5 years along with appropriate archival
and storage.
(d) Requirement of funds for implementing the HPCS capacity augmentation
would be sought from the Planning Commission, to implement the strategic plan.