PIONEER NEWS SERVICE/ Nainital
A five-day international conference on climate change and air pollution started at Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES). Inaugurating it, the former ISRO chairman, A S Kiran Kumar said that the use of space- based platforms is essential for the study of climate change and air pollution. He appreciated the efforts of ARIES for bringing global experts to discuss such important global issues. Notably, scientists from 15 countries are attending the conference. The director, ARIES, Manish Naja highlighted the importance of Himalayan region for such studies. “The ground observations are very limited here and space- based observations are not useful either in this region,” he said.
The Belgian scientist, Mahesh Shah informed that there are few FTIR – based observations in India which should be enhanced to better understand climate change in this region.
The conference was informed about the three global networks of FTIR by the space scientists who came from countries like Australia, Germany and the USA. They highlighted the tools required for assessing global warming through observations from the Himalayan regions.
Scientists from Japan, Spain, France, Canada, Ethiopia, Mexico and Sweden are also attending the conference.
