HYDERABAD: Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Prithviraj Chavan called for building research capacities to tackle the challenge of climate change and its impact on monsoon pattern and sea-level rise.
Inaugurating the five-day, seventh annual meeting of Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) here on Monday, he said the Indian monsoon was a very complex phenomenon and various laboratories, including the National Institute of Oceanography, were developing models to understand the inter-relationship between ocean, atmosphere and other systems.
Action plan
He said the government had launched a national action plan on climate change under which eight technology missions were initiated to meet major challenges, including energy and food security.
Secretary Ministry of Earth Sciences, Shailesh Nayak, said a major programme would be started shortly on earthquake research.
Monsoon forecast was a major challenge and it was aimed to take up studies on how monsoon occurred and Himalayas rose over millions of years.
President-elect AOGS, Harsh Gupta, President, Indian Geophysical Union, V. P. Dimri and D.K. Lee, President AOGS spoke.
