1 Workshop Media 21 Will New Technologies Save the Planet ? Dr Mannava Sivakumar Acting Director, CLPA World Meteorological Organization

2 Workshop Media 21 India’s first Prime Minister Mr Jawaharlal Nehru emphasized in India’s tryst with destiny (15 August 1947) that “every thing else can wait, but not agriculture” Before 1947, Indian history was replete with famine, drought and food shortages. Between 1770 and 1880, as many as 27 food scarcities and famines were recorded. At least 20 million lives were lost in India in about 20 famines that had struck since In the great Bengal famine of , 3 million people dead. In 1944, the new United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that a third of Indians were underfed. Over 100 million people were hungry. In their book “Famine-1975! America’s Decision – Who Will Survive?”, William and Paul Paddock (1965) predicted that by 1975 Indians would die in their millions. Agriculture Can Not Wait

3 Workshop Media 21 “Forty percent of the world’s current population would not be alive today were it not for the Haber-Bosch ammonia- synthesizing process. The spread of Mexican dwarf wheat and IR-8 rice (and their continually improving offspring) would have been impossible without such breakthroughs in fertilizer technology”. “Had we tried to use the technology of 1950 to produce the harvest of 2000 it would have taken an additional 2.75 billion acres of land” Norman Borlaug Agriculture Can Not Wait – The Role of Technology

4 Workshop Media 21 Impact of Green Revolution in India Food grain production [mT] Food grain import [mT] Buffer stock [mT] Population [m]

5 Workshop Media 21 Farmers and oceans Prior to 1980s, few farmers around the world would ever have imagined that the distant tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans would influence the weather and climate over their own farms.

6 Workshop Media 21 Farmers and oceans Few of the Australian farmers realized that the top three meters of the ocean can store and move as much heat as the whole of the atmosphere and that ocean currents in the tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean have a major influence on how much and when rain falls across the Australian Continent.

7 Workshop Media 21 Farmers and oceans The Sahelian farmer would have little understanding that the Indian and Atlantic Oceans impact his farming conditions.

8 Workshop Media 21 Atmosphere and oceans Atmosphere responds to ocean temperatures within a few weeks. However, the ocean takes three months or longer to respond to changes in the atmosphere. Because the oceans change much more slowly than the atmosphere, when a mass of warm water forms, it takes months to dissipate and may move thousands of kilometres before transferring its heat back to the atmosphere. It is this persistence of the ocean that offers the opportunity for climate prediction (CSIRO Marine Research, 1998).

9 Workshop Media 21 Atmosphere and ocean interactions Until 20 years ago, seasonal climate predictions were based exclusively on empirical/statistical techniques that provided little understanding of the physical mechanisms responsible for relationships between current conditions and the climate anomalies (departures from normal) in subsequent seasons. Mathematical models analogous to those used in numerical weather prediction, but including representation of atmosphere–ocean interactions, are now being used to an increasing extent in conjunction with, or as an alternative to, empirical methods (AMS Council, 2001).

10 Workshop Media 21 Opportunities Today Opportunities for value-added climatic information have increased –Early warning systems: Drought monitors –Agro-advisories- India, Korea and others –Vulnerability indicators-climate change –Yield potential mapping –Yield forecasting Advanced tools have become more widely available to address stakeholder’s needs for value added information

11 Workshop Media 21 What do we need to do ? Unfortunately, while the technologies are well documented and are available, their utilization is still far from optimal in many countries. Finding the right formula to sustain agricultural growth in a setting of rapid and dynamic change requires vision, forward-looking policy measures and innovative approaches. Efforts must be made to enhance research efforts and financial inputs to enhance our knowledge of the climate–food production systems and address climatic risks.