Clouds on You! How to see?

like 849 Posted By : Mr. Sreenatha Rathna Kumar, Scientist

It has been a long fascination to understand the clouds and its impact on us. Though we have moved on in a better manner from traditional to modern paradigm of understanding of science of clouds, it is essential atleast to the indian subcontinent perspective to know the mentioning of clouds in various texts of our ancient history. Over centuries, the subcontinent has seen severe effects of clouds in various ways. Scientists characterise with resepct to subcontinent as monsoon and a fair understanding of this has been achieved by various scientific methodologies. All these are paving the way for better understanding of the monsoon/clouds. One of the fastest and best way is by using satellites. In global perspective there are many satellites which are continously monitoring the clouds and the group is very well know as Global Precipitation Mission. Please refer the link below to know more on it.

https://pmm.nasa.gov/gpm

India is also a party to this gruop of satellite mission by contributing the cloud monitoring using various payloads of the mission Megha-Tropiques.

Megha-Tropiques is an Indo-French collaboration offerring various ways of observing the clouds in equatorial region of +/- 30degree for last 6 years. For more products of this mission refer the below link

http://www.mosdac.gov.in/content/Mission/megha-tropiques

The reader is asked to browse through the mentioned link to understand more on the products from this mission. There is a huge scope for research and study in this filed.

Also, ISRO/India is immensely contributing in the monitoring weather by using its geostationary platforms. To know more about the ISRO geostationary satellites please refer the link below.

https://www.isro.gov.in/spacecraft/communication-satellites

For a glimpse of the benefit such satellite missions, I draw the attention of reader to the following another weblink where in the images of cloud coverage over india is update every 30 minutes.

http://rapid.imd.gov.in/

In this web link, it is possible to see the latest image of cloud cover over India and near by regions. In addition there are so many options to understand. You can animate for the past few hours of data sets which shall give you a fantastic view of cloud movement. There are many more image settings, reader can try out and understand more on clouds. With this it is possible predict the weather with little bit of ground information by a common man also. This is how you can see the clouds on you! By your eyes and eyes of satellites!!

Conclusion:

Based on the satellite images by our satellites and as well as other international satellites, in recent times there is a better understanding of cloud dyamics such as cyclones, hurricanes and other serious impacts of weather disorders. Satellites are able to provide every information in order understand and improve the cloud dynamics. See the clouds on you and become a meteorologist!!