PUNE: The Environmental Information System (ENVIS) centre at the Indian Institute Of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, which has been disseminating

Information about acid rain and atmospheric pollutant modelling so far has widened its scope to include the topic of climate change and atmospheric environment.

There are more than 40 ENVIS centres across the country that covers different subjects. The role of the centre is to ensure integration of national efforts in environmental information collection, collation, storage, retrieval and dissemination to all concerned.

The high-level committees that monitor ENVIS, which come under the ministry of environment and forest, have recommended the Pune centre at IITM to change its subject profile. The ENVIS website is also being revamped accordingly to have additional inputs on climate change.

Gufran Beig, scientist and coordinator of the centre at IITM, said, "Looking into the public interest and data requirement, this decision was taken by the committee of ENVIS. Climate change is drawing more attention these days and people want to know more about it and its impact. There is no other ENVIS centre in the country addressing the issue of climate change and atmospheric pollution together."

The website that was launched to promote awareness among the students and common public, is in Marathi and Hindi language, apart from English. It is an interactive site where one can ask questions related to environment and the queries are replied by experts of IITM in 24 hours, he said.

Beig said since the last few weeks the website is being revamped to provide information related to climate change in addition to acid rain and atmospheric pollutant. The new link is data repository' that divulges details on weather and rainfall stations in India, secondary rainfall data sets, all-India temperature, district wise rainfall, time series data, total rainfall in India, among others.

"The idea is to educate the public about the impact of acid rain, air pollution and related aspects that lead to climate change in elaborate and simple language. There are also newsletters, journals and CDs available for public. The answers to some of the basic and fundamental questions like why and how pollution can affect our lives, can be found here," said Beig.

More than 2,155 visitors have visited the site in the last one year. Majority of questions are from students and senior citizens, he added.

The ENVIS centre of IITM is providing linkages to all information sources and creating data bank on selected parameters in the climate change and air pollution

At the ENVIS site (kid's corner), visuals, graphics and animations have been used to make it interesting and explain the basic aspects of pollution, clouds, rain and acid rain, climate and atmosphere, ozone, greenhouse effect, EL Nino, air pressure, floods and drought, among others

The site depicts a map showing the level of pollution in the country.