ABOUT 'MONSOON ON LINE'

by Prof. David Stephenson and Dr. Rupa Kumar Kolli who initiated MOL in 1997 :

The nobel prize winning physicist, Murray Gell-Mann wrote the following passage in his book "The Quark and the Jaguar" (1995):

"All of us are exposed to huge amounts of material, consisting of data, ideas, and conclusions -- much of it wrong or misuderstood or just plain confused. There is a crying need for more intelligent commentary and review."



This remark is particularly relevent to the world wide web which contains a vast amount of volatile information. However, much of this information is neither grouped together intelligently nor interpreted in any particular way. There are many pages containing climate information but it often tends to be scattered all over the place.

This is the reason that motivated David Stephenson and Rupa Kumar Kolli to set up a thematic website in 1997 on the Asian summer monsoon entitled Monsoon Online (MOL). At that time, we were both working together at the French National Weather Service, Meteo-France, on a European Union monsoon project called SHIVA. We noted then that although there were many sites devoted to ENSO but there were no web sites where one could easily monitor the Asian monsoon.

We continued to maintain the site after both of us moving to new institutions (U. of Reading meteorology department and IITM in Pune) but with new responsibilities this became progressively harder. So in 2010 we agreed to IITM Pune taking over the running of the site - this seemed a natural and sensible choice. Long may MOL be a source of useful information on the Asian monsoon!

David Stephenson is now director of Exeter Climate Systems at the U. of Exeter and Rupa Kumar Kolli is Chief of the World Climate Applications and Services Division at the World Meteorological Organisation.



Professor David B. Stephenson
Director of Exeter Climate Systems
University of Exeter
College of Engineering, Mathematics, and Physical Sciences
Harrison Building, North Park Road
Exeter EX4 4QF, UK


http://www1.secam.ex.ac.uk/xcs

Dr. K. Rupa Kumar
Chief, World Climate Applications & Services Division
Climate Prediction and Adaptation Branch
Climate and Water Department
World Meteorological Organization
7bis, av. de la Paix
CH-1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland

http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/contact_wcasp.html
ASSOCIATED MEMBERS :

Dr. (Smt) J.V. Revadekar
Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology
Homi Bhahba Road
Pune 411008, India
http://www.tropmet.res.in/profile-copy.php?id=68

AND

E. Black
Department of Meteorology
University of Reading
Earley Gate PO Box 243
Reading RG6 6BB, UK