The
observational data recorded at various types of surface and upper air
observatories, are scrutinised and archived at the National Data
Centre, Pune. The Centre has a powerful computer system with
peripheral devices for transferring the data from manuscripts to
magnetic and electronic media for electronic data processing and
archival. The Pune archives have approximately 8 billion characters of
data storage which includes ship data and rainfall data of State
raingauges spanning over a century. The archives form the basis for
computation of means, normals, frequencies and other derived
parameters, for their analysis and interpretation, and for the
preparation of district and state climate summaries and atlases. The
statistics thus compiled are periodically revised and updated.
Different
types of climatological data are supplied by the National Data Centre,
Pune and other offices of IMD in response to a large number of
enquiries and requests received from Central and State Governments,
universities, research institutes, public undertakings, private
enterprises and individuals. The information supplied is used for a
variety of applications such as laying of runways at airports, town
planning, tourism, mountaineering, air-conditioning, location of
industries, port installations, design of high towers, bridges and
telecommunication structures, operation of multipurpose hydel
projects, water and power management, location of projects for the
exploitation of non-conventional energy sources.
The
department has published many atlases such as the Climatological Atlas
of India , Rainfall Atlas of India and Agroclimatic Atlas of India.