Events and Highlights 2024

Anelise Borges interviews Roxy Mathew Koll on Monsoon and Climate Change in South Asia, 4 October 2024.

The Manorama Conclave brought together ‘Changemakers’ from different walks of life. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated the event. Union Minister Suresh Gopi was the chief guest at the closing session.

Dr. Koll Kerala shared his vision that every school and panchayat in Kerala and India should be climate equipped. “Kerala has schools every 3km. These schools can be climate-equipped. Every school can have a rain gauge and thermometers to measure air temperature. Similarly, schools may run on solar power and also have rain-harvesting/groundwater recharging facilities. That way, students will be not only climate aware but also climate equipped. And their data will be part of the monitoring network.”

The Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar is the highest recognition in the field of science, technology and innovation in India. Dr. Koll received the award for his breakthrough contributions to monitoring, modeling, and predicting the Indian Ocean-monsoon climate and extreme weather events.

Hindustan Times highlights the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar — Vigyan Yuva Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award [pdf].

The Print interviews Koll on the first National Science Award in the Earth Science category.

The Global Heat Health Information Network (GHHIN, we call it gin) is a dynamic community of policymakers, scientists, practitioners, working together for a world where extreme heat is no barrier to lives and livelihoods.

The GHHIN contributed to the United Nations Secretary-General’s call for global action on extreme heat, released on July 25th, 2024.

The tropical Indian Ocean underwent basin-wide warming during the last 150 years (1871–2020). The warming in the Indian Ocean was strongest during the last seven decades, at a rate of 1.2°C per century. This is dwarfed by the projected warming of 3.8°C per century in the future, if emissions continue at the current rate.

Is ocean warming pushing it into a permanent marine heatwave state? What is the extend of the warming, and what are the potential impacts?

In this new article titled ‘Future projections for the tropical Indian Ocean’, we summarize our current understanding of the past and future changes in the physical and biogeochemical state of the Indian Ocean.

Read more and download: Future Indian Ocean

Dr. Koll reminded that because of climate change, heatwaves are here to stay and will intensify in the years to come. Based on an identification of regional hotspots from IMD’s maps, he argued for the development of a national heat management framework targeted at heat-prone districts. He also highlighted how  temperatures can fluctuate throughout the day and the need for policymakers to consider steadily warming night-time temperatures because warm nights make recuperation difficult.

Lack of deployment and maintenance of these ocean observation systems during the three years of COVID (2020-2022) resulted in an irrecoverable gap in our climate data and repercussions on our weather forecasts.

Our new paper here, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, quantify the critical gaps in the Indian Ocean Observing System (IndOOS), their potential impacts on weather and climate services, and provide recommendations for the way forward [pdf].

Marine heatwaves, extremely warm waters in the ocean, strip off the colorful protective membrane of the corals, bleaching and killing them. As corals die, the marine biodiversity and fishes depending them also disappear, making our oceans an ecological desert.

Artwork executed by the Kolls and exhibited @ the International Indian Ocean Science Conference 2024, Lombok, Indonesia.

Hawksbill turtles are critically endangered sea turtles. They feed on sea sponge, kelp and sea grass.

Marine heatwaves bleach the sponges, wither the kelp and grass — and the sea turtles disappear…

The coral and the marine species in the artwork are from the Indian Ocean region and found in the coral triangle. The artwork is hand embroidery by Juby Aleyas Koll (Sarah) on canvas, along with water color, acrylic, beads, and sand from the Indian Ocean. Each coral and fish species are depicted with different hand embroidery stitches.

There is a huge “gulf” between IPCC science and the COP28 consensus. Global warming already exceeds 1.2°C and will surpass 1.5°C by 2030 and 2°C by 2050, as the trajectory of emissions and COP28 commitments to curb them are insufficient in restraining the temperature rise.

COP28 came out with a pledge of $792 million for the loss and damage climate fund. The pledged amount is less than 1% of the losses developing countries face every year from global warming, which is at the scale of several trillion dollars.

Recently, we conducted a brainstorming on the Future Road Map for the International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE2) at the Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad. The 2nd International Indian Ocean Expedition is a major global scientific program engaging the international scientific community in collaborative oceanographic and atmospheric research from coastal environments to the deep sea over the period 2015-2025, revealing new information on the Indian Ocean (i.e. its currents, its influence upon the climate, its marine ecosystems) which is fundamental for future sustainable development and expansion of the Indian Ocean’s blue economy.

Roxy Mathew Koll is the Co-Chair of the Science Theme on “Extreme events and their impacts on ecosystems and human populations” under the Second International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE2). Aditi Modi is the Vice-President of the IIOE2 Early Career Scientists Network.

The Schmidt Futures VIEW Advisory Board is on it. Watch this space for updates!

@ Stanford University, California

Roxy Mathew Koll delivered a keynote talk on ‘Observing and Predicting the South Asian monsoon — Challenges in a Changing Climate’ at the WCRP Open Science Conference 2023, organized by the World Climate Research Programme, at Kigali, Rwanda, on 25 October 2023.

The Monsoon Panel

Session on Compound Climate Extremes

Climate Research Lab at the WCRP Conference

Aditi Modi presented her research on the impacts of climate change on marine primary productivity in the tropical Indian Ocean, based on satellite observations and Earth system models. Sophia Yacob presented her R&D on a new climate-dengue model using AI/ML. We had a poster on the Meenachil River and Rain Monitoring — the citizen science program in Kerala, supported by Koll Science Foundation and Climate Trends, under the purview of WCRP My Climate Risk Lighthouse Activity.

Will Mumbai submerge? Can we climate-proof our coastal cities?

Roxy Mathew Koll at the Mumbai First roundtable meeting on climate change with Claudia Roth, the German Minister of Culture and Media, at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Mumbai.

Addressing climate change in the Indian Ocean Region: knowledge, capabilities and networks. Pubished in Indian Ocean Futures, by the University of Western Australia.

For coastal cities like Mumbai, any development can be an opportunity to redesign the city considering present and future climate challenges.

• Nature—How India is battling deadly rain storms as climate change bites [article]
• The Hindu—Book on rain data from budding weather folk [article]
• Indian Express—School students do their part in disaster management [article]
• Mathrubhumi—നാട് നന്നാക്കാൻ തോട് നന്നാക്കാനൊരുങ്ങുന്നു [article]
• The Hindu—Students lend a hand for running flood alert system [article]
• Mathrubhumi—ഇവരറിയാതെ മീനച്ചിലാര്‍ നിറയില്ല [article]