AU’s Department of Meteorology to celebrate its platinum jubilee

The Department of Meteorology and Oceanography in Andhra University will be celebrating its Platinum Jubilee with a three-day national seminar from Wednesday (September 18). The seminar is titled ‘Current trends in atmospheric and oceanic processes related to climate change studies’ at AU’s Convention Centre on Beach Road.

Over 300 delegates from top colleges, institutes and government departments such IMD, IITM and INCOIS will be attending the seminar.

Unique journey

The department has had a unique journey over the past 75 years. It was the first department to address the issues concerning meteorology and oceanography in South East Asia and one among the few in the world.

The need for a meteorology department was envisaged by then Vice-Chancellor Prof. C.R. Reddy. It was established in 1948 with Prof. Rokkam Ramanadham as the head of the department.

The university, under the stewardship of C.R. Reddy, Sarvepalli Radhakrishna and V.S. Krishna, had pioneered the launch of several new departments during its formative stage, and this was one of them, said Prof. P. Suneetha, HoD.

Former Prof. D.B. Bhaskar Rao said, “C.R. Reddy can be credited with the launch of two pioneering departments in the country — the Department of Geophysics and Meteorology and Oceanography. These departments offered MSc courses for the first time and at that time they were called Branch-I and Branch-II. He had handpicked Prof. Rokkam who was from the field of MSc. Applied Physics and sent him to Imperial College in the United Kingdom, which was one among the few colleges in the world then to teach the subject of meteorology, when the subject was then in its nascent stage.”

Since then, the department has grown and has produced distinguished alumni who are spread across the globe in key positions researching climate change and weather patterns.

According to Vijay Tallapragada, Director of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and an alumnus of the department, the alumni and researchers from this department have worked on important topics related to tropical cyclones, weather patterns, monsoon and rip currents in the ocean.

Till date, Prof. T.N Krishnamurthy from the 1953 batch is considered to be the father of the topic ‘Tropical Meteorology’. Prof. D.B Rao, another alumnus, is known as the father of ‘physical oceanography’. His research on ‘Ocean circulation and how currents form’ is considered to be pathbreaking work across the globe.

These alumni are not only placed in various universities and research organisations across the globe but also in various government departments such as IMD. NOAA, IITM and INCOIS. Today, the department imparts courses such as MSc Meteorology. MSc Applied Oceanography, M.Tech Atmospheric Sciences and M. Tech Ocean Sciences.

The inaugural address is being delivered by Dr. M. Ravichandran, Secretary MoES and Vice-Chancellor of AU Prof. G. Sashibhusana Rao. Other speakers in the inaugural session include D. Parvinder Malini, secretary, Office of PSA, Government of India, Padma Shri Dr. Shailesh Nayak, Director NIAS, Bengaluru.