The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) is a scientific institution based in

Pune, Maharashtra Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

, India for expanding research in the tropical Indian Ocean with special reference to monsoon meteorology, and air-sea interaction of South Asian climate. It is an Autonomous Institute of the

Ministry of Earth Sciences The Ministry of Earth Sciences was formed on 29 January 2006 from a merger of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune ...

Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

History

As proposed in the third five-year plan of India, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) was founded as the Institute of Tropical Meteorology on 17 November 1962 at

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

as an individual unit of the

India Meteorological Department The India Meteorological Department (IMD) is an agency of the Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Government of India. It is the principal agency responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasting and seismology. IMD is headquarter ...

(IMD), the main organization responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasts, and detecting earthquakes in India. On the recommendation of the Committee for Organization of Scientific Research of the Government of India, the Institute of Tropical Meteorology was then made an autonomous institution under the new name, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, on 1 April 1971. Until 1984, it worked under the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation. In 1985, it was taken by the Department of Science and Technology/ Ministry of Science and Technology. As per the notification No. O.M. No.25/10/2006 dated 19 July 2006 by the

President of India The president of India ( IAST: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Murm ...

, the institute has been put under the control of the

(MoES) with effect from 12 July 2006.

Academics

The institute offers a M.Sc., M.Tech. and Ph.D. courses jointly under the aegis of the Department of Atmospheric and Space Sciences,

University of Pune Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), formerly the University of Poona, is a collegiate public state university located in the city of Pune, India. It was established in 1949, and is spread over a campus in the neighbourhood of Ganes ...

. Apart from degree-courses, students can also apply for summer or master's thesis projects to individual scientists based on their research.

Computational facility

Adithya HPC, one of the largest computational capacities of India, is located at IITM. It is a common facility for all MoES institutions. Pratyush or Prathyush (Hindi: प्रत्यूष, meaning "first light on the sky before rising the Sun") is a supercomputer designed and developed by IITM, Pune. As of January 2018, Pratyush is the fastest supercomputer in India, with a maximum speed of 6.8 petaflops. The system was inaugurated by Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for science and technology, on 8 January 2018. Pratyush consists of two High-Performance Computing (HPC) units. They are located at two government institutes: 4.0 petaflops unit at IITM, Pune; and 2.8 petaflops unit at the

National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) is a national agency for weather forecasting under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, (transferred from its former parent Ministry of Science and Technology), Government of India. It is a ...

(NCMRWF),

Noida Noida, short for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, is a planned city located in Gautam Buddha Nagar district of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Noida is a satellite city of Delhi and is a part of the National Capital Region (NCR) o ...

. Pratyush uses both units and provides a combined output of 6.8 PetaFlops. Pratyush is used in the fields of weather forecasting and climate monitoring in India. It helps the country to make better forecasts in terms of monsoon; fishing; air quality; extreme events like a tsunami, cyclones, earthquakes, and lightning; and other natural calamities such as floods and droughts. India is the fourth country in the world to have a High-Performance Computing facility dedicated to weather and climate research, after Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom.

References

External links

Website of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology
{{Authority control India Meteorological Department Research institutes in Pune Research institutes established in 1962 1962 establishments in Maharashtra