Reading 2: Keeping "Data" on the Monsoon
(The following selections are abstracted from Chasing the Monsoon: A Modern Pilgrimage Through India, Alexander Frater Now York: Alfred Knopf Inc., 1992. p.26-32.)

Since childhood, Alexander Frater has been fascinated with the sound of rain. He spent his childhood staring at a photograph entitled "Cherrapunji, Assam: The Wettest Place on Earth. "It is in Cherrapunji that the Indian monsoon produced the world's heaviest rains. In 1987, he decided to "chase the monsoon "from Kerala in southern India to Cherrapunji in Assam, a south to north journey.

I phoned the Meteorological Office and asked for an interview with Dr. R.P. Sankar, the Director General. I wanted to talk to India's top weather man about monsoon matters... A crisp, likeable man with an enthusiasm for his subject, he reckoned the monsoon would arrive in Delhi on time, June 29th, plus or minus the usual five-day leeway. It would be a good, though not outstanding monsoon. How could he tell?

He beamed at me. "Data! These days our preoccupations are global, remember. We are part of a multinational concern processing information from all over the world. What is the weather in London? We must know because, two or three days later, it may affect us. We track all the systems. In this office you will hear people discussing the pressure correlations in Australia, Buenos Aires and Tahiti, upper air flow patterns over the Soviet Union, the state of icebergs around the Antarctic - the seventh Indian Met Office expedition is down on the ice cap now - temperatures in Northern Europe and so forth. What we are seeking is the Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average, or ARIMA, which is the most accurate means of forecasting we have."

He spoke of the interesting connection between the El Nino current and the Southern Oscillations, called ENSO. (The fish-rich El Nino, flowing off the Peruvian coast, has become an important factor in the monsoon's predictive sequence ... ) India was an active member of the 160-nation-strong World Meteorological Organization. WMO members, keeping in constant touch through the GTS, or Global Telecommunications System, had supported the foundation of the Summer Monsoon Activity Center, SMAC, set up in Delhi and staffed by monsoon specialists from all participating countries.

H. F. Blandford, the first Director General appointed in 1875, inherited a rough and ready reporting system established a century earlier by officials of the East India Company. They understood the huge economic importance of trying to predict the Indian weather, and all provincial medical officers and revenue collectors were ordered to keep records of local winds and rainfall. But they used primitive, non-standardized instruments which came without instructions and their disparate readings cast little light on the cause of the monsoon.

Blandford changed all that... To acquire data he set up the finest meteorological network in Asia; everyday weather telegrams came from all over India and Burma. He established mountain observatories and kite stations. He recruited bright young Indians and gave them his own sense of mission. He asked many of the right questions.

His successor, Sir John Eliot, pursued a policy of global cooperation. India took part in the International Cloud Year in 1897. It was Eliot who first published regular forecasts of monsoon rainfall. Over the years, he looked for cause and effect everywhere. Was there a link between monsoon rainfall and the flood waters of the Nile? Yes. Did deforestation influence the monsoon? No. Was sunspot activity a significant factor? Sometimes. Might there be a direct correlation between meteorological events in India and in places far, far away? Absolutely.

How does/has the monsoon affect life for people in South Asia?