Editorial 1 : The significance of carrier aviation
Context:
On March 5, both aircraft carriers of the Indian Navy, INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant, showcased “twin carrier operations” with MiG-29K fighter jets taking off simultaneously from both and landing cross deck.
INS Vikrant
- INS Vikrant is indigenously designed and constructed and commissioned in September 2022.
- A carrier is a floating city. The design work on the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC)-I, later christened Vikrant, began in 1999; however 2005-2006 were probably the most crucial years for the carrier and for India’s war shipbuilding.
- The crucial decision was on the warship grade steel, which till then was procured from Russia.
- After much brainstorming, it was decided that it would be developed and produced in India, a collaborative effort between the Steel Authority of India, the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Indian Navy.
- The decision on the development of DMR-249 steel was a commercial decision and thereafter DMR-249 steel is now being used for the construction of all warships in the country.
- The keel of Vikrant was finally laid in 2009, launched into water in 2013 and went through extensive user acceptance trials between August 2021 and July 2022 before its eventual commissioning.
The composition
- Delays notwithstanding, Vikrant is an engineering marvel.
- It has a total area in excess of 12,450 m2 which equals to about two and a half hockey fields.
- The 262m long and 62m wide ship is powered by four General Electric LM2500 engines generating 88 MW of power giving it a maximum speed of 28 Knots and an endurance of 7,500 nautical miles.
- The ship has around 2,200 compartments, for a crew of around 1,600 that include specialised cabins to accommodate women officers and sailors.
- Noting that among manufacturing activities, shipbuilding has one of the highest employment multipliers of 6.48, the economic Survey 2022-23 said that Vikrant alone engaged approximately 500 MSMEs, 12,000 employees from ancillary industries, and 2,000 CSL employees.
It’s Capabilities
- Vikrant can operate an air wing of 30 aircraft comprising MiG-29K fighter jets, Kamov-31, MH-60R multi-role helicopters, in addition to indigenous Advanced Light Helicopters and Light Combat Aircraft (Navy).
- It uses the STOBAR (Short Take-Off but Arrested Recovery) method to launch and recover aircraft for which it is equipped with a ski- jump to launch aircraft, and three ‘arrester wires’ for their recovery.
- The flight deck has an independent lighting system to assist for bad weather and night operations.
- The aircraft with a speed of more than 250 kmph is stopped within a distance of just 90m in just 2-3 seconds.
- Vikrant has larger deck space and visibly larger hallways compared to previous carriers including Vikramaditya, which is of similar size.
- While the present Vikrant was the first carrier built in the country, India has had a long history of operating carriers.
- The erstwhile 19,500 tonne Vikrant was India’s first carrier purchased from the U.K., which arrived in 1961 and played a vital role in the 1971 war.
- Then came the 28,700 tonne INS Viraat commissioned in 1987, formerly HMS Hermes, also from the U.K.
- INS Vikramaditya procured from Russia and commissioned in 2013 is India’s third carrier.
Way forward
- An aircraft carrier is fundamental to command, control and coordination of operations from the sea and to project combat power ashore, over the seas or in the air
- The fragile maritime security situation across the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and India’s stature as the largest resident naval power necessitate a strong and robust Navy.
- Aircraft carriers play a pivotal role in this and concurrent availability of two Carrier Battle Groups facilitate credible presence and preparedness on both Western and Eastern seaboards.
- The current global trajectory shows that, the growing carrier targeting missiles and drones notwithstanding, the days of carrier aviation seem to be bright for the foreseeable future.
Editorial 2 : Anticyclones, hanging even now over India, link warming to heat
Context
The complexities of the ways in which global warming manifests in local weather continue to underscore the need to model globally but predict locally.
Heat waves correlated with global warming
- Global warming also creates unique features locally that modulate heat waves on top of cool background temperatures.
- Some persistent circulation patterns have been creating heat waves and this pattern should serve as another focal point for improving predictions.
- It was apparent in March that the anticyclonic circulations over the North Indian Ocean were the drivers of unusual rainfall over Odisha.
- An anticyclone has winds moving in a clockwise direction, with air sinking down in the middle of it. As this air hits the ground, it is compressed and warmed and can create a high pressure heat dome.
- An anticyclonic circulation could also explain the historic Dubai floods of April 17.
- And these anticyclones exist over the North Indian Ocean and the Indian subcontinent even now.
What links anticyclones to heat?
- The persistence of the anticyclones is not unusual in and of itself.
- During the pre-monsoon season, the upper-level Indian Easterly Jet (IEJ) begins to take shape in the upper atmosphere, at around the 10 degrees N latitude, across the Arabian Sea, peninsular India, and the Bay of Bengal.
- A strong westerly jet exists to the north around 30 degrees N, and the two together can generate an anticyclonic pattern over the Indian Ocean and the Indian subcontinent.
- An easterly jet refers to strong winds coming from the east while westerly jets come from the west. These are natural seasonal features.
- The westerly jet is pushed north during the monsoon season and the IEJ dominates the Indian subcontinent.
- During the pre-monsoon season, a strong anticyclone can bring dry and hot weather over many parts of India while a weak anticyclone produces milder weather.
Amplification of heat waves
- The record warming of 2023 has so far not been fully explained since it was much warmer than what we expected just from the superposition of El Niño on global warming.
- But the impact of the El Niño during its pre-monsoon demise on the IEJ tends to produce a stronger and more persistent anticyclone and thus longer lasting and more intense heat waves.
- So, the heat wave season this year is consistent with the warmer temperatures due to the El Niño itself as well as the ‘steroids’ being added by the unexplained warming of 2023.
Stages of early warnings
- Returning to the local manifestation of global warming: accurate early-warning systems take a three-step approach called the ‘ready-set-go’ system, under the so-called ‘Subseasonal-to-Seasonal Predictions’ project of the World Climate Research Program under the World Meteorological Organisation.
- India is part of this project, has invested heavily in predictions, and has made impressive progress in improving the accuracy of predictions.
- The ‘ready’ step provides a seasonal outlook — where the background state, or the external factors (such as global warming and the El Niño), are used to maximise the accuracy of longer-lead forecasts.
- The ‘ready’ step allows the NDMA, its local agencies, and all local governments to ready their disaster response systems.
- The subseasonal predictions refer to the extended range of weeks two to four, which contribute to the ‘set’ step.
- Resource allocations and identifying potential hotspots to move resources including personnel ensure disaster-preparedness is set to go.
- The ‘go’ step is based on short- (days 1-3) and medium- (days 3-10) range forecasts. At this step, everything hits the road to manage a disaster, including rescue efforts, hydration centres, heat shelters, etc.
Conclusion
All evidence suggests India’s prediction system and early warning systems continue to improve and the NDMA has worked these details well into its ‘ready-set-go’ system. The remaining challenges are to build resilience for the future by better predicting the trajectory of the weather at every location over India.