After US climate agency cuts, India scientists warn of monsoon, cyclone forecast risks

Indian scientists and policymakers have expressed concern over job cuts at the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, warning that reduced climate observations could affect monsoon forecasts and cyclone tracking in India, PTI reported.

Hundreds of employees at the US climate agency, including meteorologists responsible for local forecasts, were dismissed last week. The job cuts were part of efforts by the Donald Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency to slash the US federal workforce.

“We are worried,” M Ravichandran, secretary at the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences, told PTI. “If NOAA reduces observations, there will be implications on weather forecasts. When ocean observations reduce, there is less data to assimilate. Hence predictability will reduce.”

Climate scientist Roxy Mathew Koll of the Indian Institute for Tropical Meteorology described the layoffs as a global crisis that could impact climate science.

“For India, the monsoon forecasts, cyclone tracking and climate projections rely on NOAA’s models,” PTI quoted Koll, who is also an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report author, as saying. “Half of the Indian Ocean’s observational network is backed by NOAA. Without this backbone, early warnings for floods, heatwaves, and storms will weaken, putting millions at risk.”

Koll, a recipient of the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar, said that the layoffs at NOAA were “more than a...

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