The IIT-Goa will collaborate with the City University of New York (CUNY) for sharing weather and climate data to help spread awareness of climate change as well as to build a database of data that can be used for research.

Under a project funded by the US Consulate in Mumbai, CUNY has set up a weather monitoring station at the IIT-Goa campus -- the first of seven that CUNY is installing in west India as part of a grant from the consulate.

“This is our first stop in the collaboration with the US consulate in Mumbai to set up weather and air quality monitoring stations in the US and India… We are collecting data -- regular data for weather like temperature, humidity etc which is very important. We are also collecting data of solar radiation, air quality as well soil moisture, so it gives you a lot more data than a regular weather station does. 

It helps us to make more people connections and helps us to use data to help climate change to help us understand what is happening in the world,” Prof Neal Philip of the New York University, said.

“We will have access to data generated from all the stations across India and also from abroad, if we request. It also has an outreach component associated with the installation, where we invite people from local villages, and people to understand how we measure parameters over there and how that information can be used for their farming activities, planning of other activities,” Prof Sharad Sinha of the IIT-Goa, said.

“In addition we are also discussing with them joint degree programmes, student and faculty exchanges so that students for example from Bronx community college (one of the colleges affiliated with the CUNY) could study here in IIT Goa so that will also highlight Goa as an education destination, besides also a tourism destination,” he said.

The initiative to set up seven weather monitoring stations across west of India is part of a US Consulate General Mumbai- Bronx CUNY Climate Collaborative Project.