INCOMPASS Project – Improving Weather and Climate Predictions of the Indian Monsoon

A team of scientists from the School of Earth and Environment are playing a leading role in a world-first field experiment in India, to improve weather and climate predictions of the monsoon. The group, led by Prof Doug Parker (CDT in Fluid Dynamics co-Director), forms part of the Anglo-Indian INCOMPASS project, which is making unprecedented observations of the land, ocean and atmospheric systems controlling the monsoon climate.

Research flights with the UK BAe146 research aircraft operated by the FAAM, have been conducted right across India, from the eastern and western reaches of the Indo-Gangetic plain in the north, to the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, crossing the Deccan Plateau and Western Ghats in the south. A remarkable network of surface energy balance stations has also been established across the subcontinent, through partnership between the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) and a number of Indian partners, including the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). An observational "supersite" has been set up at Kanpur in the north of India, including instruments installed by the NCAS Atmospheric Measurement Facility (AMF) at Leeds. INCOMPASS is jointly led by Andy Turner at the University of Reading and Prof GS Bhat at IISc.