Roxy Mathew Koll and Co-Authors Aditi Modi, Swapna Panickal and Vinu Valsala got the Silver Jubilee Award for the Best Research Paper in 2016, for the paper “A reduction in marine primary productivity driven by rapid warming over the tropical Indian Ocean”, published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Nature Climate Change features our study on extreme rains as a Research Highlight
Graham Simpkins, Nature Climate Change Editor writes –
In late August and early September, 30 million people were affected by widespread flooding in India due to extreme rainfall. Such events have become increasingly common in recent decades, but coincide somewhat counter-intuitively with a long-term reduction in mean precipitation and a corresponding decline in the frequency of rain-bearing depressions.
Roxy Mathew Koll from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and colleagues quantify changes in extreme rainfall across the Indian sub-continent, and further diagnose the mechanisms responsible for such enhanced hydroclimatic variability in the region… [Read More] [pdf]
A threefold rise in widespread extreme rains over India
Widespread extreme rain events across central India have tripled since 1950, reports a study led by Dr. Roxy Mathew Koll and his team at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), and published in Nature Communications. These severe weather events result in large-scale floods and catastrophic loss for life and property across central and northern India – Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Odisha, Jharkhand, Assam and parts of Western Ghats – Goa, north Karnataka and South Kerala. The study finds that the rise in extreme rains are due to increasing fluctuations (variability) in the monsoon winds (westerlies), in a changing climate [Read more].
The study on extreme events, due to its impact on the large-scale floods and catastrophic loss for life and property across India, received huge attention in the media, with national television channels airing it at prime-time, and many newspapers and magazines covering it as front-page headlines [See our media section].
Lead Author of the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC)
Roxy Mathew Koll has been selected as a Lead Author of the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provide regular assessments for policymakers of the scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects relating to climate change. In the SROCC, Roxy will be dealing with a chapter on extremes and abrupt changes in the ocean, and managing the risks. [News in the Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle] [IPCC Author List]
Panini wins the Best Poster Award at the OSICON ’17 Conference, Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 2017
Panini Das Gupta won the Best Poster Award for his research on “Interannual Variability and changes in the initiation and lifecycle of Madden Julian Oscillation”, at the OSICON 17 Conference in Thiruvananthapuram, September 2017.
The IndOOS Review, First Meeting at Perth, Australia, Feb 2017
The Indian Ocean Observing System (IndOOS) data is used in addressing societal and economic needs, in weather and seasonal climate forecasting and in the production of routine ocean-maps, re-analyses and predictions. Along with US, Japan, Australia and other countries, India is a major stakeholder in implementing the Indian Ocean observing systems. The major challenge for IndOOS at this time is to find and focus the resources of individual nations to achieve a coherent completion of the IndOOS plan, in particular to sustain the observing system and to build capacity to enable participating agencies to assimilate this data into operational forecasting models. In order to achieve this, an IndOOS Review meeting was hosted by UNESCO – Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) at Perth, Australia in Feb 2017. From IITM, Roxy Mathew Koll and R. R. Rao contributed in preparing a plan and white paper report for the IndOOS Review. [CLIVAR Indian Ocean Panel].
