Dr. Atul Varma of Indian Space Research Organization

SAtellite MIcrowave Radiometer (SAMIR) on board Bhaskara-1 in 1979 was first satellite-borne earth observing microwave instrument launched by India, and that was followed by Bhaskara-2 in 1981. Bhaskara-1/2 carried SAMIR operated at 19, 22 and 31 GHz (Bhaskara-2) channels, and that provided the global distribution of atmospheric water vapour and cloud liquid water.  After the launch of Bhaskara mission, the next subsequent mission that carried the microwave instrument was Oceansat-1 with a radiometer in 1999. Over the last 2 decades, India has launched a number of satellites with both active and passive microwave instruments for ocean and atmospheric research and services. Today observations from satellite borne microwave instruments play a very important role in the operational weather/atmospheric and oceanic services. Though the satellite remote sensing for the oceans and atmosphere is carried out using instruments working in different regimes of the electromagnetic spectrum, the scope of this talk is limited to provide an insight into presently available satellite borne microwave instruments with their characteristics, physical basis for the measurement of geophysical parameters, and their role in the operational weather/atmosphere and ocean services in the country.  In this talk, the emphasis is given on currently operational Indian missions such as Oceansat-2/SCATSAT-1, Megha-Tropiques, SARAL-AltiKa and RISAT, which have carried on-board various instruments such as radar scatterometer, passive microwave radiometer, microwave humidity sounder, radar altimeter, synthetic aperture radar and GNSS radio-occultation sounder, etc. This talk also touches upon capabilities of many other instruments on international missions that are currently not available on any Indian satellite. Finally, this talk will conclude with a discussion on planned future missions such as NISAR, Oceansat-3/3A, and temperature and humidity sounder (TSU & HSU), and opening of research possibilities with them.

Biography:

Dr. Varma is Head and Scientist-G at Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation Ahmedabad, He currently leads the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Group in the Geophysical Parameters Retrieval Division. His  team  has responsibility of providing algorithms for the retrieval of geophysical parameters from Indian satellite missions for oceans and atmosphere, defining sensors for future missions, and developing methods for generating climate data records. he has received PhD h.D in Depa Electronics Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) (Previously, IT, BHU), Varanasi, India in 1999. He received following awards and Honors during his career.

NASA Group Achievement Award (2015) - Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) - post
launch team.
 ASI-ISRO award for 2013 in the area of “Space Science and Applications”.
 ISRO Team Excellence Award for year 2009 for Ku band scanning scatterometer payload
development and scatterometer data processing for Oceansat-2.
 ISRO Team Excellence Award for year 2011 for MADRAS (a multi-frequency microwave
scanning radiometer) Payload Development and Megha-Tropiques data products generation and
applications.

Email:

Address:Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Geophysical Parameter Retrievals Division, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, 380058