surface fluxes including radiation, the vertical profiles of atmospheric temperature, humidity and winds and the ocean temperature, salinity and current profiles were made from different observational platforms. Two ships (viz., ORV Sagar Kanya of the Department of Ocean Development (DOD) (National Centre for Antarctic and Oceanic Research (NCAOR), and INS Sagardhwani of NPOL, Defence Research and Development Oragnisation (DRDO)), Met-Ocean Buoys (DS3 and DS4) of the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Conventional weather station network along the coast and weather advisories by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), IRS-P4 & INSAT Satellites of Department of Space (DOS), numerical weather forecasts by the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), etc. were utilised.

In addition to the time series observations at stationary ships, observations were made along the zonal sections when the ships made port calls and north-south sections at the beginning and at the end of the experiment. Two inter-comparison experiments were also carried out at the south Bay of Bengal (DS3 location) for about 9 hours on 18-19 July 1999 and for 12 hours on 27 August 1999. Seven intensive observational periods of 2 to 4 days duration were identified and additional data sets have been observed to capture the processes involved in monsoon intraseasonal variability. More than 80 scientists from 15 organisations participated in the implementation of BOBMEX.

Several experts contributed towards planning, coordination and day-to-day weather advisories during BOBMEX filed phase. The technical advise was provided by the Project Advisory and Monitoring Committee (PAMC) on Monsoon and Tropical Climate (MONTCLIM) & ICRP, Working-group on Ocean-atmospheric filed experiments under ICRP, Committee on Atmospheric and Oceanographic Instrumentation, BOBMEX operations science team and a weather-advisory group. The filed operations were co-ordinated by the BOBMEX coordination centre, located at IMD, New Delhi.

BOBMEX Data sets

BOBMEX provided the time series measurements of six-week duration on profiles of salinity, temperature, currents and turbidity in the upper ocean, along with atmospheric conditions in the marine boundary layer and upper atmospheric conditions in different phases of monsoon. The principal investigators viz., Dr. GS Bhat, Shri. LVG Rao, Dr. RR Rao, Shri. SR Kalsi and Dr. K Gopala Reddy prepared the quality check data sets and some of them are made available to the participating scientific community for critical analysis.

National Workshop

In order to discuss the scientific results, a national workshop on BOBMEX Initial results was organised by the DST at NIO, Goa during 15-16 February 2001. An overwhelming response and participation of over 90 scientists, many of them are young scientists, in the workshop has the testimony to the BOBMEX success.