U.S.-India Cooperative Research: Sea Breeze Convection, Storm Surge Modeling and the Land/Ocean Processes AssociatedWith the Indian Ocean

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Description: This award is to support a collaborative research between Drs. Sethu Raman and Leonard Pietrafesa of the North Carolina State University (NCSU), Raleigh, and Dr. P.A. Aswathanarayana of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM), India. These scientists, in collaboration with the Indian National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) on the IITM campus, plan to study Indian sea breezes, atmospheric convection along the see breeze front, and to also study the storm surge processes along the East coast of India (Bay of Bengal). In the first part, the scientists plan to investigate the horizontal extent of the sea breezes in relation to land-sea temperature differences and the ambient wind, and to study the formation of deep convection along the sea breeze front and its dependence on other factors such as land use pattern and upper air stability. They plan to primarily use a hydrostatic numerical model developed at NCSU and transferred to the IITM. This model will be extended to a 3-dimension state and used with atmospheric observations in India that is taken every three hours, and dating back for 30 years. The model may be supplemented with a non-hydrostatic model as needed. In the second part, the scientists will utilize a storm surge model available at the NIOT and based on Sea, Lake and Overland Surges from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model originally developed in the United States. They will develop methods to prescribe meteorological forces that drive the ocean model, and will also use a simple hydrodynamic model developed at NCSU and used in North Carolina during the occurrence of Hurricane Emily in 1993, with satisfactory results, in predicting this tropical storm surge. Scope: This award is to allow cooperation between a U.S. team that is quite active in modeling various atmospheric-sea-land phenomena, and an Indian team at the Madras campus that has excellent analytical capability as well as access to extensive data sources from numerous Indian research organizations. These governmental organizations operate radar, satellite, and other atmospheric and ocean measurement instrumentation on a continuous basis. The research is of significant scientific benefit to the United States and India, and is of particular importance to the meteorological activities of the Indian authorities in predicting severe climatic and weather conditions. The project involves eminent scientists and graduate students on both sides.