IITM, ARIES join hands to establish BCON climate monitoring station in Himalayan region
In a significant step towards strengthening India's climate observation infrastructure, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, and the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital, have signed an agreement to establish a long-term climate monitoring station under the Bharat Climate Observation Network (BCON) at Devasthal in Uttarakhand's Himalayan region.
The MoU was signed online on June 18 by IITM Director Dr. A. Suryachandra Rao and ARIES Director Dr. Manish Kumar Naja.
The collaboration seeks to advance research on climate change through sustained observations of key climate variables, including meteorological parameters, greenhouse gases, short-lived climate forcers, and soil moisture.
Located in the Himalayan region, ARIES' Devasthal campus offers a unique high-altitude environment for atmospheric observations.
Its relatively pristine surroundings make it an ideal site for measuring baseline atmospheric conditions, tracking greenhouse gas concentrations, studying the transport of climate-relevant pollutants, and improving understanding of climate processes over the Himalayas.
The proposed station will become part of BCON, a national observational programme conceptualised and implemented by IITM under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
The network aims to generate long-term, high-quality climate datasets across diverse geographical regions of the country.
According to the institutions, data generated through BCON will support the detection of long-term climate trends, strengthen climate change research, and enhance India's capacity for climate assessments and evidence-based policymaking.
The observations will also provide critical validation data for Earth System Models, including the IITM Earth System Model, helping improve simulations of climate processes and future climate projections over India.
Scientists from IITM's Centre for Climate Change Research (CCCR), including Dr. Suvarna Fadnavis and Dr. Yogesh Tiwari, as well as ARIES researchers Dr. Umesh Kumar Dumka and Dr. Priyanka Srivastava, were present during the online signing ceremony.
The establishment of the Devasthal station is expected to bolster India's climate monitoring capabilities in the ecologically sensitive Himalayan region while contributing valuable scientific data to national and global climate research efforts.
