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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Good monsoon signal for crops

Good monsoon signal for crops

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published Published on Oct 2, 2016   modified Modified on Oct 2, 2016
-The Telegraph

New Delhi: The countrywide monsoon rainfall this season was three per cent below average instead of the predicted six per cent above average, but it was distributed well enough to promise good crop yields, scientists said.

An end-of-season analysis by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) shows that the quantum of the all-India rainfall was about 97 per cent of the long-period average.

It also reveals that 27 of the country’s 35 meteorological subdivisions received normal or excess rainfall this monsoon season, which ended yesterday.

Senior meteorologists said the nine-point deviation of the actual rainfall from the predicted figure was “not significant”. But, they added, it highlighted once again the limitations of the long-range forecast the IMD issues every year before the start of the monsoon.

Weather scientists who specialise in crop-related forecasts, however, said the overall rainfall figure was usually not as important as how the rain was distributed.

“Whether it is six per cent above average or three per cent below average is not important; what is important is that it was very well distributed this year,” Gautam Saha, professor of agricultural meteorology at the Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyala in Bengal, told The Telegraph.

The IMD analysis shows that eastern and northeastern India experienced the greatest departure from the long-period average, with rainfall 11 per cent below normal. The rainfall was five per cent below average in northwestern India, and eight per cent below in the southern peninsula. (See chart)

But crop scientists view the monsoon’s behaviour as favourable. The Union agriculture ministry has said it expects the areas under cultivation and the yields of most kharif crops to be “higher” as a result of the “favourable monsoon rainfall”.
 
The ministry estimates that rice production this year would be a record 93.88 million tonnes, beating the 92.78 million tonnes of 2011-12.

Crop yield forecasters have predicted a record 19.3 million tonnes of maize and a record kharif pulse crop of 8.7 million tonnes, more than 3 million tonnes higher than last year.

However, the ministry estimates a sugarcane crop of 305 million tonnes, about 46 million tonnes lower than last year. These estimates will be revised in the coming months as the actual production figures come in from the states.

Weather scientists say the gap between predicted and actual rainfall should not surprise. Over the past two decades, the actual rainfall has deviated up to eight points higher or lower than the forecast, with the lowest deviations being four points lower or higher.

“The number given out by the long-range forecast is primarily intended to guide policy — it does not predict rainfall performance in the states, regions or districts, which is what determines the impact of rainfall,” a senior weather scientist said.

The long-range forecast has for over 130 years relied on inferences based on statistical relationships between monsoon rainfall and other weather parameters such as the snow cover, ocean temperatures and air pressures elsewhere in the world.

The IMD is now preparing to improve its long-range forecasts through the use of computer-based simulations, called dynamic models, of the world’s weather.

“These dynamic models will give more information about how rain will be distributed in time and space through the monsoon season,” said Madhavan Rajeevan, a secretary in the earth sciences ministry who is leading a mission to improve models to forecast the monsoon.

“We’re hoping to release a long-range forecast based on dynamic models next year,” Rajeevan told this newspaper.

“We will not abandon the statistical approach of issuing long-range forecasts but will add dynamic models into the forecasting process.”

Weather scientists from across the country will begin a two-day brainstorming session in Pune on Monday to discuss strategies for arriving at long-range forecasts by combining the traditional statistical models with the computer-simulation-driven models.

The Telegraph, 1 October, 2016, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1161002/jsp/nation/story_111442.jsp#.V_C6g_T3_N4


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