Robots to dive into seas off India to unlock monsoon’s secrets

June 14: Underwater robots may help scientists unlock the secrets of the Indian monsoon, whose onset and intensity are key for food supplies and economic growth in the nation of 1.3 billion people.

Researchers will sail into the Bay of Bengal to release the robots and measure variables such as ocean temperature, salinity and currents, according to the UK’s University of East Anglia, which is leading the project. Other scientists will take readings from aircraft. The goal is to monitor weather systems as they are created to improve models of the June-September rains.

The £8-million project is unprecedented in scale for observation of an ongoing monsoon and the insight gleaned could eventually help farmers time planting better, University of East Anglia Meteorology professor Adrian Matthews said in a statement. The rainy season is complex and little understood, he added.

Hundreds of millions of people in India suffered from one of the nation’s worst droughts since independence this year, following two poor annual rainy seasons and the onset of intense summer heat. Better forecasting would boost the nation’s capacity to prepare for such weather changes.

The university scientists are due to head out into the Bay of Bengal on the Indian research ship Sindhu Sadhana on June 24 and spend a month at sea. The robots are underwater gliders with the ability to measure their surrounding environment.