Pune: The first phase of advanced instrumentation for the Coastal Atmospheric Research Testbed (C-ART) was set up at Andhra University in Vizag by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) to strengthen the country’s coastal weather monitoring and research capabilities.Vizag’s location along the Bay of Bengal makes it a critical economic and maritime hub for India, but the region is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, including cyclones, intense thunderstorms, and heatwaves. These posed risks to lives, infrastructure and ecosystems, said scientists.The IITM, therefore, is establishing a C-ART as a dedicated research and observational facility to improve understanding and prediction of coastal atmospheric processes at Andhra University as a part of Mission Mausam, a flagship programme of the ministry of earth sciences. The IITM and Andhra University recently inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for C-ART on the AU campus.The first phase of instrumentation of C-ART features advanced atmospheric instruments deployed at the department of meteorology and oceanography, Andhra University. These include instruments to monitor the atmosphere, such as depolarisation ceilometers, aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) counter, among others. These instruments will enable high-resolution monitoring of aerosols, clouds, precipitation and greenhouse gases — critical to improve weather forecasts and climate models.
