Air Quality Early Warning System for Delhi was launched in Delhi by the Union Environment Minister.
The System is designed to predict extreme air pollution events and give alerts to take necessary steps as per Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) of the Government of India. The air pollution system has been developed jointly by the scientists at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, India Meteorological Department and National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF).
The early warning system will help in proactively forewarning, 3-4 days in advance, any large scale air pollution events which may occur over the Delhi region.
The air pollution system has been developed jointly by the scientists at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, India Meteorological Department and National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF).
The warning system consists of a) real time observations of air quality over Delhi region and details about natural aerosols like dust (from dust storms) and particulate matter using different satellite data sets b) Predictions of air pollutants from two different air quality prediction systems based on state-of-the-art atmospheric chemistry transport models and c) Warning Messages and Alerts and Bulletins.
The prediction systems were developed by scientists of MoES institutions with the technical support from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), USA and the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI). The prediction part of the system consists of two modelling framework, one is based on NCAR atmospheric chemistry transport model and the second one is based on Finnish Meteorological Institute model. The modelling framework typically consists of a high resolution weather prediction model with an atmospheric chemistry transport model.
Both the models have data assimilation facility, which can assimilate data from satellites on dust aerosols, particulate matter from stubble burning and other air pollutants like SO2 and NO2.
The models will take into account the background aerosols and pollutants, long range transport of dust from dust storms and particulate matter from stubble burning. The predictions are now available up to 72 hours lead time.
The final product with 400 m x 400m high-resolution emission inventory of Delhi and fringe area of all eight important air pollutants (like PM2.5, PM10, NOx, CO, SO2, BC, OC and VOCs) was released.