Scientists to release underwater robots to improve monsoon prediction in India

British scientists are gearing up to release robots in Bay of Bengal in a bid to better predict and understand the seasonal monsoon of South Asia. This will be done as part of a study of how the rainfall patterns might be affected by ocean conditions. India gets more than 70 per cent of annual rainfall in the seasonal monsoon which hits the region between June and September.

Hundreds of millions of subsistence farmers across the country eagerly await the arrival of monsoon as delays usually result in drought and can even ruin crops. Rains are hard to predict and can weather phenomena like El Nino can affect them. According to scientists, increasing climate change and air pollution can turn rains even more erratic.

“We are aiming for a better understanding of the actual physical processes,” lead researcher Adrian Matthews of the University of East Anglia’s School of Environmental Sciences said in a statement. “Ultimately, the goal is to improve the prediction of monsoon rainfall over India.”

Scientists from British university, as part of the newly launched $11 million study, will release seven underwater robots in sea and will spend a month in the process. The torpedo-shaped robots will be released in sea from an Indian research ship across a 400-kilometer (250-mile) stretch of water.

Gliding through the water, the robots will monitor its salinity, temperature and current. They will then surface and transmit data to a satellite. In a related study which will take place at the same time, the scientists from the University of Reading and the Indian government will take atmospheric measurements. The two sets of data will then be compared in order to better understand how monsoon patterns are affected by ocean conditions.