ESSO-INCOIS ANNUAL REPORT 2016-17 ESSO-Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (An autonomous body under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India) “Ocean Valley”, Pragathi Nagar (B.O.), Nizampet (S.O.), Hyderabad-500 090. Telangana, INDIA Tel: +91-40-23895000, Fax: +91-40-23895001; E mail: [email protected] Website: www incois.gov.in Annual Report 2016-17 ESSO-Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) (An Autonomous body under Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India) Hyderabad Contents 1 Preface 1 From Director’s Desk 1 2 ESSO-INCOIS Organizational Structure 5 2.1 ESSO-INCOIS Society 5 2.2 ESSO-INCOIS Governing Council 6 2.3 ESSO-INCOIS Research Advisory Committee 6 2.4 ESSO-INCOIS Finance Committee 6 2.5 The Mission 7 2.6 Quality Policy 7 3 Highlights 9 4 Services 11 4.1 Ocean State Forecast (OSF) 11 4.1.1 Extreme event forecasts 11 4.1.2 State-of-the-art OSF Lab 12 4.1.3 OSF forecasts during Re-usable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstration 12 4.1.4 Consultancy projects 12 4.1.5 Search And Rescue Aid Tool (SARAT) 13 4.1.6 Oil-spill advisories 14 4.1.7 Training Programme on Marine Weather forecasting for Merchant Navy Officers 14 4.2 Marine Fishery Advisory Services (MFAS) 15 4.2.1 Potential Fishing Zones (PFZ) and Tuna PFZ Advisories 15 4.2.2 Species specific research efforts 17 4.3 Multi-hazard Early Warning System (MHEWS) 18 4.3.1 Tsunami Early Warning 18 4.3.2 Tsunami Modeling 19 4.3.3 Operationalisation of New Decision Support System (Version 2016) 20 4.3.4 Workshops, Communication Tests and Tsunami Mock drills 22 4.3.5 Storm Surges Early Warning 24 4.4 INCOIS User interactions and initiatives 25 4.5 Coastal MVHM (Multi-hazard Vulnerability Mapping) 26 4.5.1 Coral Bleaching Alert System 27 4.6 Data Services 27 4.6.1 Ocean R 28 emote sensing data products 4.6.2 Establishment of new X-band ground station 28 CONTENTS 4.6.3 Gap filling algorithm for remote sensing and spatial datasets 30 4.6.4 Detection and correction of sensor degradations of Argo floats 31 4.6.5 Polygon based method for the quality control of marine met data sets 31 4.6.6 Tools for analysis and visualization of Met-Ocean data 32 4.6.7 ESSO and IIOE-2 metadata portals 34 4.6.8 Data archaeology 35 4.6.9 Tropflux data 35 4.6.10 Bio-Argo floats data 35 4.6.11 Service to Indian Navy 35 5 Ocean Observations 37 5.1 The Argo Programme 37 5.2 The RAMA mooring programme 37 5.3 Coastal ADCP network 38 5.4 XBT Programme 39 5.5 Equatorial current meter moorings 39 5.6 The Drifter programme 40 5.7 Ship-based Observations 40 5.8 Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) 41 5.9 Wave Rider Buoy Network 41 5.10 Tsunami Buoys 43 5.11 Tide gauges 44 5.12 Network of communication systems 45 a) Establishment of GNSS & Strong Motion network in A&N Islands 45 b) Establishment of Indian Seismic and GNSS Network (ISGN) 46 6 Ocean Modeling and Data Assimilation 47 6.1 High-resolution Operational Ocean Forecast System (HOOFS) for the Bay of Bengal 47 6.2 Marine Ecosystem Modelling 47 6.3 Unstructured SWAN for east coast of India 48 6.4 Wave forecast System using WAVEWATCH III 49 6.5 Global Ocean Data Assimilation System (GODAS) 49 6.6 ROMS-LETKF 49 7 SA 51 Tellite Coastal and Oceanographic REsearch (SATCORE) programme 7.1 T 51 ime Series stations and data statistics 7.2 Sub 52 -surface bio-physics in north-eastern Arabian Sea during algal bloom esponse of phytoplankton community and size classes to green 7.3 R Noctiluca bloom 52 ANNUAL REPORT 2016-17 7.4 Winter Thermal Inversion and Trichodesmium Dominance 53 8 Research Highlights 55 8.1 Red tide of Noctiluca scintillans 55 8.2 Phytoplankton community structure in local water types 56 8.3 Phytoplankton along offshore transects in Indian estuaries 57 8.4 Neural-network based data assimilation in wave models 58 8.5 Orographic effect on tropical rain physics 59 8.6 Penetrative radiative flux in the Bay of Bengal 59 8.7 Optical characterization in Chilika lagoon 60 8.8 Algal species dynamics in North Arabian Sea 61 8.9 Identification of Coral Reef feature using Hyper-spectral remote sensing 62 8.10 Latent heat flux sensitivity to sea surface temperature 63 8.11 High swell in North Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean cut-off low 64 8.12 What controls seasonal evolution of sea surface temperature in the Bay of Bengal? 64 8.13 List of Research Papers Published from ESSO-INCOIS (April 2016 - March 2017) 66 8.14 List of Technical Reports Published from ESSO-INCOIS (April 2016 - March 2017) 72 9 Computational Infrastructure and Web based Services 73 9.1 Computing Infrastructure 73 9.2 Web Based Services 73 9.3 Web Services for IIOE-2 73 10 Capacity Building Training and Outreach 75 10.1 International Training Centre for Operational Oceanography (ITCOocean) 75 10.2 SATCORE Training Programme 77 10.3 Workshops/Meetings 78 a) India-Bangladesh Scoping Workshop 78 b) Meeting of UK Science & Innovation Network in India 78 11 International Interface 79 11.1 IOGOOS (Indian Ocean-Global Ocean Observation System) Secretariat 79 11.2 The Indian Ocean Observing System (IndOOS) 79 11.3 SIBER (Sustained Indian Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research) International Programme Office 80 11.4 International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) 80 11.5 International Oceanographic Data Exchange 80 11.6 Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Africa and Asia (RIMES) 80 CONTENTS 11.7 OceanSITES 81 11.8 Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO) 82 11.9 Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (ICG/IOTWS) 82 11.10 GODAE Ocean View 82 11.11 International Indian Ocean Expedition-2 (IIOE-2) 83 11.12 Indian Ocean Panel 84 11.13 Union Commission on Data and Information (UCDI) 84 12 Seminars, Lectures and Other Events 85 12.1 Guest Lectures 85 12.2 ESSO-INCOIS Foundation Day 86 13 General Information 89 13.1 Awards and Honours 89 13.1.1 Ministry of Earth Sciences Awards 89 13.1.2 Fellow of Telangana Academy of Sciences 89 13.1.3 Indian Society of Remote Sensing (ISRS) Award 89 13.1.4 Best Paper Presentation Award 2016 by TROPMET 89 13.1.5 Award of Honorary Doctorate 89 13.1.6 National Geoscience Award 90 13.1.7 Awards related to Hindi Language promotion 90 13.2 Promotion of Hindi 91 13.3 Independent Review of INCOIS Activties 91 13.4 Vigilance Activities 93 13.5 Right to Information Act 93 13.6 Open House 93 13.7 Student Projects 94 13.8 Deputations 96 13.9 ESSO-INCOIS Human Capital 100 Acronyms 101 14 Finance 109 ANNUAL REPORT 2016-17 From Director’s Desk It gives me immense pleasure in presenting the Annual Report of ESSO-INCOIS for 2016-17 inventorying happenings and achievements. During the past year, INCOIS has lived up to expectations as well made giant strides in the areas of ocean information and advisory services and in ocean modelling. Several feedbacks were received from users, on information and advisories we have provided, yet again testifying their usefulness and benefits received. To aid in the search and rescue of lost objects/men at sea, we came out with a Search And Rescue Aid Tool (SARAT) amalgamating ocean state forecasts and probablity models. This tool is of great help for agencies like the Indian Coast Guard who are engaged in search and rescue at sea. We have also established a state-of-the art ocean state forecast laboratory to aid the generation of ocean state forecasts using multiple data sets and models. We have lived up to the expections of all in our country as well as the countries of the Indian Ocean Rim in providing tsunami early warnings without missing a single large earthquake event (M > 6.5) on the floor of the Indian Ocean or elsewhere. During the last year, we have also deployed a new Decision Support System (Ver. 2016) to enhance our capability in providing tsunami early warnings more efficiently. While continuing to conduct communications tests (comms-tests) every 6 months to ensure the connectivity between the warning centre and other agencies, we also coordinated IOWave16, a mock drill to prepare the disaster management agencies and coastal population on what to do in case of a real tsunami event. The tsunami mock drill, IOWave16, was conducted during 7-8 September 2016 in coordination with IOC/UNESCO and 23 countries on the Indian Ocean rim. About 40,000 people were evacuated from 350 districts/villages spread over 8 states in India. Since we depend on satellite data for our services, a new X-Band ground station (3rd ground station on campus) was established to acquire direct broadcast data from Suomi-NPP satellites. To understand turbulent mixing in the mixed layer of Bay Bengal in the winter season, a special cruise on board ORV Sagar Nidhi was conducted during 18 December 2016 to 3 January 2017. The data is being analysed. As promised in the 12th plan project, we have completed setups and operationalized high-resolution ocean models to forecast the temperature-salinity and currents in the entire water column in the seas around India.