Consortium Agreement for Core Partnership on Unified Model Earth System Modelling for Seamless Prediction of Weather and Climate

No: --- Dated: Dec, 16 2015

The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has approved the signing of the Consortium Agreement by the Earth System Science Organization-Ministry of Earth Sciences (ESSO-MoES) with the U. K. Met Office (UKMO), Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) and the Commonwealth of Australia through its Bureau of Meteorology and the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial and Research Organisation (CSIRO) for a coordinated effort in the development of a state-of-art Unified Model (UM) Earth System Model for the seamless prediction of weather and climate from days to season.

MoES will make an annual member contribution of £100,000 (One Hundred Thousand Pounds Sterling) to the Unified Model Consortium.  Indian scientific and academic community will benefit from this MoU as it is an enabling mechanism to jointly work on scientific challenges in the field of earth system modelling and weather and climate prediction.

The MoU will allow the exchange of scientific resources as well as knowledge to support the improvement and development of earth system modelling for weather and climate prediction over Indian monsoon region in particular.

The MOU is likely to be signed in January 2016 enabling India to become the fourth core UM partner through ESSO-NCMRWF and contribute to the UM technical and scientific development.  Under the agreement, core partners will work under a common governance structure, decide on strategy for planning, designing of joint development programs with prioritized tasks and mobilization of resources.