Scientists will deploy seven underwater robots into the Bay of Bengal.
Dileep Thekkethil
Soon predicting monsoon will become easier as Indian scientists along with their British counterparts will release underwater robots to study the Bay of Bengal.
According to the scientists, the underwater robots will accurately predict the reach of monsoon. If the robots do the prediction accurately, it will be a boon for the farmers in India.
Monsoon is an important factor that affects the livelihood of millions of farmers across the country who are reeling under the threat of frequent droughts.
According to the Hindustan Times, the scientists from the University of East Anglia (UEA) will deploy seven underwater robots into the Bay of Bengal from a ship during next week. The robots will study the changes in the ocean that influence the monsoon rainfall.
The scientists are of the belief that the data gathered from the robots will help in better equipping the farmers for the monsoon, and thus, improve the cultivation and the livelihood of over 200 million farmers.
Miniature submarine size robot
The scientists said that the robots, which are miniature forms of a submarine have computers on board. The robots will spend a month’s time under the Bay of Bengal moving through the southern section of the bay, measuring temperature, salinity, and currents.
“The Indian monsoon is notoriously hard to predict. It is a very complicated weather system and the processes are not understood or recorded in science,” lead researcher Adrian Matthews said.
It is also reported that the scientists are also planning to fly a plane equipped with scientific equipment to measure the atmosphere under the Bay of Bengal as part of the multi-million-pound study of the monsoon which hit the southern parts of the country last week.
Data collection
The scientists from the Britain’s University of Reading and India’s climate experts will use the data collected by the devices onboard the flight to analyze the heat and moisture in the air.
“Nobody has ever made observations on this scale during the monsoon season itself so this is a truly groundbreaking project,” he said.
Farmers in India rely more on the monsoon that first hit the Kerala coasts in June for cultivation, but many states are currently slogging under acute shortage of water.
According to the scientists, the data beamed backed by the devices via the satellite signals will be sued to create computer models of the ocean to determine how it affects weather and rainfall over India.
“We should be able to collect an amazing amount of information about how this weather system develops,” researcher Ben Webber told AFP.