Meteorological data relayed by aircraft goes down by 60% in India due to suspension of flights

The suspension of flights in India due to the coronavirus outbreak has led to a 60 per cent decline in the availability of meteorological data relayed by aircraft, Ministry of Earth Sciences Secretary M Rajeevan said on Thursday.

He told PTI that due to the reduction of air traffic across the world, the crucial meteorological data shared with air traffic controls by planes has gone down by 50-60 per cent globally. The air traffic controls in turn share data with meteorological organisations.

A scientist dealing with the aircraft relay data said the information is run in two models in India the UK MeT office model and US' Noaa model for coming out with forecasts.

"It does affect the quality of forecast, but then there are other sets of data that are used to forecast to bridge the gap," the scientist, who works with one of the institutions under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, added.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) Director General M Mohapatra said the data shared by the flights is used in forecast models, especially in the medium range in predicting weather over the span of 10 days.

He said the airlines across the globe share data with air traffic controls, which in turn share data with meteorological organisations.

"The aircraft are fitted with meteorological equipment that measure the temperature, air speed and humidity. The aircraft shares the observation on the route it takes," Mohapatra said.

He said the data is important as all the measurements are taken directly unlike the one from satellites which have to be converted through different models.

Since meteorological phenomena is inter-linked, data from different parts of the globe is crucial in weather predictions.

According to the World Meteorological Department, the idea of making meteorological and other scientific atmospheric measurements from aircraft is nearly as old as aviation itself, but it is only in the late 1980s that the Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay (AMDAR) observing system commenced as an operational programme sanctioned by WMO.

"AMDAR and other aircraft-based observations provide an improvement in forecasting ability through a reduction in NWP forecast error of up to 15-20," the WMO stated on its website.

A 21-day lockdown was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24 to fight the coronavirus outbreak. Since then all flight services in the country have been suspended.