Country Report of Pakistan

(2015-2016)

for

43rd

Session of WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical

Cyclones (PTC) (New Delhi, India from 2-6 May, 2016)

Pakistan Meteorological Department PMD Headquarters Office,

Pitras Bukhari Road, Sector H-8/2

Islamabad-Pakistan Tel: (+92-51) 9250367, 9250593

Fax: (+92-51) 9250368

Email: pakmet_islamabad@yahoo.com

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1. Tropical Cyclone Activity:

1.1 Tropical Cyclone “ASHOBAA” in Arabian Sea (7th

-12th

June, 2015)

The Cyclonic Storm “Ashobaa” developed over east central Arabian Sea from 7-12 June, 2015. On 5th June, an area of intense convection with associated clouds cluster developed at a distance of about 1450 km south of Pakistan coast. It gradually moved northward and became a low pressure area over southeast and adjoining east central Arabian Sea in the morning of 6th June. It concentrated into a Depression in the morning of 7th June over east central Arabian Sea. Moving nearly north-north-westward and intensified into a Deep Depression in the night of 7th June. It further intensified into the Tropical Cyclone “Ashobaa” in the morning of 8th June. It gradually intensified till the night of 10th June and lay centred at Lat 20.9°N and Long 61.2°E about 750 Km southwest of Karachi and 230 Km east-northeast of Masirah, Island (Oman). On 11th June, it slowly tracked further west-ward and started weakened into a deep depression in the night of 11th June. It further weakened into a depression in the morning of 12th June and into a well-marked low pressure area over northwest Arabian Sea and adjoining Oman coast in the evening of 12th June.

2. Meteorological Component

2.1 “Establishment of Specialized Medium Range Weather Forecasting Centre

(SMRFC) and Strengthening of Weather Forecasting System in the Islamic

Republic of Pakistan”

Government of Pakistan has approved the project entitled “Establishment of Specialized Medium Range Weather Forecasting Centre (SMRFC) and Strengthening of Weather Forecasting System in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan” worth about Rs. 2.5 billion under Japanese grant-in-aid assistance. Out of the total project cost, the share of Government of Japan is around 97.5 %. The Government of Japan will provide state-of-the-art technology to further enhance the medium range forecasting capabilities of PMD. Installation of high computing system (128 nodes), Weather Surveillance Radar at Islamabad and two Wind Profiler (one each at Islamabad and Multan) are part of this project. Short-term Objectives

Lead-time early waning/weather information to stakeholders and general public Promotion of safe operation of civil aviation activities. Minimizing damages and protection of people's life and property from natural

disasters (heavy rain, flood, etc). To further enhance and up-grade the present Aeronautical Meteorological services of

PMD and to facilitate end-users including domestic/international Airlines, Pakistan Air Force (PAF), Pak. Army, Pak. Navy and other concerned stake holders. To provide

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more accurate information for aviation related to CAT, Jet Stream, Air Turbulence etc.

Medium / Long-term Objectives

Upgrading weather monitoring and improve flood forecasting in the country. More accurate provision of Early Warning/meteorological information to the

stakeholders including general public & government organisations, news media etc. Paved way for sustainable socio-economic development though improved service

delivery.

2.2 3rd International Monsoon Workshop (Islamabad on 9th June, 2015)

Pakistan Meteorological Department

(PMD) in collaboration with Regional

Integrated Multi-Hazard Early

Warning System for Africa and Asia

(RIMES) organized 3rd Monsoon

Forum Workshop in Islamabad on 9th

June, 2015 in which stakeholders

from different domains like DRM,

Climate Change, universities, NGOs,

and Electronic & Print Media

participated. The main objective of

the workshop was to get feedback

from user institutions on the

relevance/usability of PMD forecast

products and recommendations for

further improving the quality of

information, dissemination and

consumption by user communities.

Besides, discussion on Monsoon

Forecast 2015, the forum also

reviewed the last year weather

forecast and provided feedback

towards improving seasonal forecast

for the year 2015.

2.3. Signing of MoU between PMD and Qatar Meteorology Department (PMD) in the field of Marine Meteorological Services A MoU was signed between Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) and Qatar Meteorology Department (QMD) on October 28th, 2015 in Doha, Qatar for enhancing cooperation and coordination in the field of meteorological services and to support the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) in the Gulf Sea. The cooperation includes multiple aspects; including capacity building in the field of marine meteorology, numerical weather prediction and will also support applications of scientific

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research in the field of fluctuations in climate and climate change, marine disasters related to weather. Representatives from PMD, QMD alongwith representative from WMO attended the MoU signing ceremony.

2.4. Launch of Country-wide Telephone based Weather Information

Pakistan Meteorological Department in collaboration with the Centre for Language Engineering (CLE) of University of Engineering & Technology (UET), Lahore launched Pakistan-wide telephone based Weather Information Service on 13th August, 2015. The ceremony was inaugurated by Maj. Gen Asghar Nawaz, Chairman, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). About fifty participants including representatives from Aviation Division, UET Lahore, Islamabad ICT R&D Fund and PMD attended the ceremony. Weather information of 139 districts of Pakistan is being provided by dialling the UAN number 051-111-638-638 and 10 telephone lines have been dedicated to the system at present. In order to make the service more flexible and user friendly towards meeting the increasing demands of the stakeholders, PMD has planned to increase the number of phone lines up to 32.

2.5 Signing of MoU between PMD and University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Lahore

A Memorandum of Understanding

(MoU) was signed between UET,

Lahore and PMD at UET, Lahore

on 24th March, 2016. Professor

Dr. Fazal Ahmad Khalid Vice-

Chancellor UET Lahore and Dr.

Ghulam Rasul, Director General

PMD signed the MoU. The

agreement will facilitate to

formalize the liaison between

UET Lahore and PMD to promote

training exchange, workshops,

research collaboration in the

areas of mutual interest.

Based on the collaboration, a mobile based weather information service, covering 139

districts of Pakistan has already been launched to facilitate the users about weather

services. The cooperation will also facilitate the development of software regarding speedy

information about weather will facilitate the masses. It will not only update the user about

weather but also enable to provide advanced information about critical weather conditions,

such as droughts, floods etc.

2.6 Signing of MoU between National Maritime Policy Research, Bahria University, Karachi and Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD)

A Memorandum of Understanding signed between National Center for Maritime Policy Research (NCMPR), Bahria University, Karachi, and Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) on 3rd August, 2015 at Met Headquarter, Islamabad for research on Meteorological and Climatic Factors

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in Relation to Maritime Domain and Coastal Areas of the Country.

MoU was signed by Mr. Sayyid Khawar Ali HI (M), Vice Admiral (Retd) / Director General NCMPR and Dr. Ghulam Rasul, Director General, PMD. The coastline of Pakistan extends 1,050 km (650 mi), 250 km falling in Sindh province and 800 km in Balochistan. Through MoU between NCMPR and PMD will work together to conduct research in maritime and coastal domains to enhance scholarly cooperation. The broader areas of cooperation will.

2.7 Establishment of Regional Meteorological Centre in Gilgit-Baltistan region

PMD has recently upgraded its meteorological facilitates in the Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) region

and has established a full fledge Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) in the GB region for

the provision of weather and climate information at the door-step of the community living in

these areas as well as to service Army Aviation. Special training sessions have also been

conducted for the operational staff of 08 meteorological observatories of GB region to

enhance their skills/abilities to deliver effective weather and climate services in the region.

2.8 Establishment of two new Meteorological Observatories in Punjab Province

As a step towards strengthening the meteorological observation network of PMD, two (02)

Met. Observing stations were established in District Layyah and Kot Addu (District

Muzaffargarh) of the Punjab province.

2.9 Signing of Memorandum of Understanding between PMD and K-Electric

Limited, Karachi

An MoU was signed between PMD and K-Electric Limited on 22nd March, 2016 for mutual collaboration on disaster prevention due to extreme climate events. This MoU is signed in context of last year’s killer heatwave in Karachi that took more than 1000 precious lives. This agreement will bring PMD and K- Electric into closer collaboration to mitigate the impacts of any anomalous weather conditions in the country, particularly in Karachi city.

2.10 COP21-Paris: Pakistan Delegation met Secretary-General, WMO

Pakistan delegation led by Minister of Climate Change Mr. Zahid Hamid met with Secretary General WMO at COP21 in Paris. Madam Zakia Shah Nawaz Minister of Environment from Punjab, Mr. Arif Ahmed Khan, Secretary Climate Change, Dr. Ghulam Rasul, Director General PMD and Director General, Ministry of Climate Change also attended the meeting. Minister briefed him about climate vulnerabilities of Pakistan despite the least emitter including recurring floods, drought, heat waves, glacier retreat and sea level rise. Secretary General WMO appreciated Pakistan role in global and regional climate initiatives in disaster risk reduction. He highlighted WMO Flash Flood Guiding System and UNESCO Indus flood project. In response to DG Met report of progress on flood and drought initiatives in Pakistan, Secretary General assured to continue support for Pakistan in improving the climate services.

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2.11 Implementation of QMS for Provision of Meteorological Service for Air- Navigation (ISO 9001: 2008 Certification)

As per WMO and ICAO requirements, PMD has implementing Quality Management System

(QMS) in the provision of Meteorological Services for Air-Navigation at its major

Meteorological Offices. In November, 2013, Allama Iqbal International Airport, Lahore and

Jinnah International Airport, Karachi got ISO 9001:2008 Certification, whereas in 2014 fifteen

(15) more Meteorological Offices got this certification making the total number seventeen

(17), as per given detail:

Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Multan Cantt, Nawab Shah, Sukkur, Moenjodaro,

Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan, DG Khan, Hyderabad, D I Khan, Gilgit, Chitral, Saidu Sharif

and Skardu. ISO certification for these Met. Offices have been got renewed in November,

2015 for another 3-years period.

2.12 Celebration of World Meteorological Day on 23rd March, 2016 at PMD’s Institute of Meteorology & Geophysics, Karachi In commemoration of establishment of World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on 23rd March, 1950, Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) made special arrangements to celebrate the World Meteorological (WM) Day on 23rd March at its Institute of Meteorology and Geophysics (IMG), Karachi. People from various walks of life, institutions, academia were invited to take part at this knowledge-sharing platform. Mr. Muhammad Musleh Uddin, Director (Retd.) was the Chief Guest. He delivered the keynote address highlighting the theme of this year’s WM Day “Hotter, Drier, Wetter Face the Future”. Dr. Ghulam Rasul, Director General, PMD

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in his address stressed upon the need of sharing climate knowledge with government agencies and the civil society and to apply it for strong climate actions to minimize the climate risk and foster sustainable development. Participants were briefed though various programmes and activities about the objectives of the WM Day celebration besides sensitizing them about the looming threat of climate change, its implications, weather and climate related disasters. A brochure containing the key messages from the Secretary-General WMO, Secretary (Aviation), Government of Pakistan, and PR of Pakistan with WMO and highlighting climate projections for the 21st century developed by PMD as well as mitigation and adaptation strategies in context of climate change was also distributed among all stakeholders of PMD.

At the eve of WM Day, an exhibition was also arranged at IMG, Karachi in which various

meteorological and seismological instruments, meteorological charts and met. products were

displayed. The exhibition remained opened on 24th and 25th March, 2016 for the students

and the general public.

2.13 Numerical Weather Prediction at PMD

Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has been running ICOsahedralNonhydrostatic model (ICON) model since March 2015. ICON is a targeting a unified modeling system for global numerical weather prediction (NWP) and climate modeling. The main achievements of ICON are exact local mass conservation, mass-consistent tracer transport, a flexible grid nesting capability and the use of non-hydrostatic equations on global domains. ICON dynamical core is designed to better tap the potential of new generations of high performance computing, to better represent fluid conservation properties that are increasingly important for modeling the Earth system, to provide a more consistent basis for coupling the atmosphere and ocean and for representing sub-grid-scale heterogeneity over land, and to allow regionalization and limited area implementations. In particular the ICON dynamical core will solve the fully compressible non-hydrostatic equations of motion for simulations at very high horizontal resolution. This approach minimizes global communication, thereby localizing memory access which is advantageous for highly distributed and heterogeneous computing infrastructures. The discretization of the continuity and tracer transport equations will be consistent so that mass of air and its constituents are conserved, which is a requirement for atmospheric chemistry.

The model is installed on a high performance computing cluster system of 184 cores. ICON is driven by initial conditions from the GME (Global Model of DWD, Germany)

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which has 13km horizontal grid resolution and 40 atmospheric Levels. ICON operates twice daily for 7days forecast on 00UTC and 12UTC, at 13km horizontal resolution. PMD was previously using High Resolution Regional Model (HRM) of DWD Germany which was hydrostatic model with limitations of very horizontal resolutions for complex topographic domain. The vertical pressure gradient force is set equal to gravity in hydrostatic models. This assumption works well until the grid spacing goes below~10 km. Non-hydrostatic motions include meso-scale phenomenon mountain waves, thunderstorms, and squall lines which occur inside the grid spacing of hydrostatic models.

Further improvements in the resolution and performance of COSMO model are underway and will further improve the weather forecasts issued by PMD and also enhance the accuracy of weather predictions.

Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) modeling system also has been deployed on High Performance Cluster Computing System for operational weather forecast up to 72 Hours at a finer resolution (7km). The model is currently being used for diagnostic studies by researchers. A GTS link via ftp has also been established between China Meteorological Administration (CMA), and PMD Islamabad. NWP products of CMA’s Global Spectral Model (GSM) in Grib1 format are being uploaded to our ftp server daily at 00:00, 06:00, 12:00, and 18:00 GMT. GSM has a horizontal resolution of TL639 (0.28125 deg) and is used for Short- and Medium-range forecast. Specifications of High Performance Computing Cluster Peak Computational Performance 1.7 TFlops Dell Power Edge M600 Blade Servers 32Compute Nodes Processor: 3.33GHz 2 x Quad Core Intel Xeon Processors. Memory: 8 GB Each PowerEdge R720 Rack Server Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600 PowerEdge R930 Rack Server Intel® Xeon® processor E5-8800 Connectivity: Infiniband Interconnect 20 Gbps, Fiber Channel 8Gbps Storage: SAN Dell/EMC CX4-120 with Fiber Channel 8 Gbps Interconnect, 12 TB SATAII (12 drives of 1 TB each) - FC 5.2 TB (13 Drives of 400 GB each) 28TB PERC RAID Storage 2.14 Severe Heatwave Hit Karachi A sever heat wave struck the country in June 2015, which caused high number of causalities especially in Karachi. Most of the country was under the grip of heat wave during 17th to 24th June. As on 20th June, high temperatures were recorded in the southern parts of the country. The temperature ranged from 49°C (in Larkana and Sibbi) to 45 °C in Karachi. In southern Punjab, 40°C was recorded in Multan, whereas several areas of the Balochistan province were also affected where temperature touched 49°C in Sibbi and Turbat. On account of this heat wave, death cases due to heatstroke were reported in Karachi, Hyderabad, Noshero Feroz, Dadu, Badin, Thatta and Tharparkar.

3 Hydrological Component

3.1 Establishment of Regional Flood information System in the Hindu Khush

Himalayan Region (HKH-HYCOS)

In wake of Super Floods 2010 in Pakistan, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain

Development (ICIMOD) based in Nepal”, has been implementing a project entitled

“Establishment of Regional Flood Information System in the Hindu Khush Himalayan Region

(HKH-HYCOS)” in order to promote regional cooperation in flood risk reduction and to cope

with future flood disaster in Pakistan with Federal Flood Commission (FFC) being the

coordinating agency while WAPDA and PMD were the main beneficiaries of the project.

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Under this project, three (03) AWS (Automatic Weather Station) have been installed at

Gupis, Kalam and Lower Dir for sharing of Meteorological parameters among “ICIMOD”

Member countries via a website http://hkhhycos.pmd.gov.pk

The main objectives of the project are given as under: a. Establishment of a flood observational network in selected basins in the participating

countries.

b. Enhanced technical capacity of partners on flood forecasting and communication to the end users

3.2 UNESCO Project “Strategic Strengthening of Flood Warning and Management Capacity of Pakistan” Phase-II

In the aftermath of 2010 historic floods in Pakistan that caused huge loss of precious lives, damage to property and disrupted socio-economic activities, the UNESCO in collaboration with JICA/Government of Japan initiated a project “Strategic Strengthening of Flood Warning and Management Capacity of Pakistan” in July 2011 in order to improve the flood forecasting and early warning capabilities of Pakistan to effectively cope with such hydrometeorological disaster risk reduction challenges in the country in future. The main beneficiaries of the project at national level were included Federal Flood Commission, Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission, National Disaster Management Authority and Pakistan Meteorological Department. Under the first phase of the project, International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM) under the auspicious of UNESCO and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) developed a flood forecasting and routing model Indus-IFAS (Integrated Flood Analysis System for River Indus) and was put into operation at PMD’s Flood Forecasting Division (FFD), Lahore for dissemination of lead-time flood warnings to the communities living in flood plains of the upper Indus and Kabul River. The project was completed in June 2014. However, after September 2014 floods in the Eastern rivers and in order to improve Indus-IFAS, there was considered a dire need to extend the Indus IFAS system to cover the whole Indus River catchment including the Eastern rivers of Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, and Sutlej. Therefore, upon request of Pakistan, UNESCO and Govt. of Japan showed their concurrence to implement IFAS Phase II of the project in order to increase the accuracy and reliability of Flood Early Warning System in Pakistan for mitigating hydrometeorological disasters for the safety and prosperity of people of Pakistan. The phase II of the project was launched in March, 2015.

3.3 International Workshop on Standardizing Flood Forecasting and Warning

Approaches in Transboundary Catchments (Lahore, Pakistan on 19-20 April,

2016)

An International Workshop on “Standardizing Flood Forecasting and Warning Approaches in Transboundary Catchments” was jointly organized by PMD and UNESCO in Lahore, Pakistan on 19-20 April, 2016. This international workshop is part of phase-II of UNESCO's "Strategic Strengthening of Flood Early Warning and Management Capacity of Pakistan" Project, which was launched in March 2015.

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The workshop was attended by representatives from national and international partner organizations such as ICHARM, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMAs), Federal Flood Commission (FFD), PMD, universities, provincial irrigation departments and international experts from Australia, France, Indonesia, Korea and Japan. The participants shared their knowledge to further enhance the river modelling and flood forecasting models for Indus and the Eastern Rivers.

3.4 Glacier Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) Project in Northern Pakistan

Glacial, Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) has become number one disaster in glaciated

northern Pakistan. PMD under the auspices of UNDP has recently carried out a project

“Reducing Risks and Vulnerabilities from Glacial Lake Outburst Floods in Northern

Pakistan". Under this project, science and community based GLOF early warning

system has been established at three (03) pilot sites in northern area (Bagrot valley in

Gilgit, Bindogol and Golain valleys in Chitral). The main objectives of the project was to

assess the vulnerability of these valleys to Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs),

Installation of community based GLOF warning system in pilot valleys and updation of

glacial lake inventory and identification of potentially dangerous lakes.

Targets achieved: Developed criteria and conducted GLOF specific Hazard Vulnerability Risk Assessment

(HVRA) in the target valleys and developed Hazard maps.

Developed scientific indicators for monitoring GLOF.

Installed Hydro-Meteorological Equipments (Automatic Weather Stations, Automatic

Rain Gauges and Discharge Measuring Equipments) in the target valleys for the

development of community based GLOF warning system.

Updated glacial lake inventory and identification of potentially dangerous lakes through

remote sensing and their ground truthing.

Prioritized GLOF hotspot on the basis of HVRA and glacial lake inventory.

Completed simulation modelling of GLOF and development of EWS in both target

Valleys.

Developed Video Documentary for general mass awareness.

Conducted community awareness workshops to sensitize the communities of target

valleys regarding GLOF disaster.

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3.5 Updating GLOF Lake Inventory of Northern Pakistan and Establishment of Community Based Early Warning System in Bagrot and Bindogol Valleys

Identification and assessment of glacial lakes is important for monitoring of GLOF hazards. Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) with the financial assistance of UNDP and in cooperation with National Agricultural Research Council (NARC) has introduced a new updated Glacial Lake Inventory. As per this inventory there are 3044 glacial lakes in Hindu-Kush-Karakorum-Himalaya region of Pakistan. Among these lakes 36 are classified as potentially dangerous. Inauguration of GLOF Warning Centre and Community Awareness Workshop in Bagrot Valley, Gilgit On 1st September, 2015 Mr. Nisar A Memon, Senator & Chairman, Pakistan Water

Environment Forum inaugurated the GLOF Early Warning System in Bagrot valley in Gilgit.

A community awareness workshop was also arranged at this occasion. A GLOF liaison

office was established at Konodas Gilgit for monitoring of GLOF related events in the

area.

Mr. Nisar Ahmed Memon and Dr. Ghulam Rasul Unveiling the Inaugural Stone

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The awareness workshop sensitized the local community about GLOF related disasters,

their triggering mechanism and mitigation strategies. The community was also educated

about the impacts of weather phenomenon on GLOF. The community very actively

participated in workshop. Pamphlets were also distributed to the communities regarding the

awareness of GLOF events besides lectures and training sessions.

4 Disaster Risk Reduction Component

4.1 Seismic Monitoring Network of PMD

PMD has a network of 30 remote seismic monitoring stations throughout the country which

are continuously recording the earthquake activity in the region. PMD issues SMS to media

and other stakeholders immediately about the location, magnitude, depth, times and shock-

wave information. Such SMS cover all earthquakes greater than magnitude 2 on Richter

scale and earthquake information is disseminated within 3-minutes of the occurrence of

earthquake through SMS to media and other concern stakeholders/government

functionaries.

4.2 Installation of Satellite bases Siren System at coastal cities of Pasni and Gwadar for Tsunami Early Warning Pakistan Meteorological Department installed a Siren System for satellite based tsunami early warning for the communities residing at the coastal cities of Pasni and Gwadar in

Dr. Ghulam Rasul, Director General, PMD addressing to the Community Awareness Workshop

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Balochistan province. Both cities were suffered by a tsunami in November, 1945 and approximately 4,000 precious lives were lost in. The Siren System for tsunami early warning is the donation from Oxfam Great Britain and UNDP.

4.3 Reverse Linkage Project between Marmara Research Center (MRC), Turkey and Pakistan Meteorological Department on Earthquake Seismological Research In the past, Pakistani nation has suffered severe life and economical losses due to devastating earthquakes and tsunami. To mitigate these losses from earthquakes and tsunami in Pakistan, the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in collaboration with Marmara Research Center (MRC), Turkey has sketched out a project in order to enhance the capabilities of Pakistan (Pakistan Meteorological Department) in the field of earthquake, tsunami, and tectonics of the earthquake prone areas of the country. The total cost of the project is PKR 101 million through which Islamic Development Bank and MRC share is 78% while Government of Pakistan’s share is around 23%. This project is for the study of Makran Subduction zone and the tectonics of southern Baluchistan. Targets to be achieved under this project are given as under: (a). Up gradation of earthquake analysis system of PMD, i.e. SeisComP3 which also works

as a tsunami early warning system. The newer version will replace the old one installed

at Islamabad and Karachi.

(b). Deployment of five (05) Global Positioning System (GPS) stations for Makran coast of

Balochistan province and one set of equipment for backup.

(c). Deployment of five new seismic monitoring stations for Balochistan province and one

set of equipment for backup.

(d). Installation of three (03) sets of site classification measurement systems for risk

assessment.

The completion of the project would facilitate PMD to further enhance its capacities in the field of seismological research, help to mitigate seismic risk through provision of improved seismological information and thus significantly contribute to the safety of lives and property of the people of Pakistan in the wake of geophysical disasters. 4.4 Research Report on Earthquake Trend Analysis of Pakistan After the strong Hindu Kush earthquake of M= 8.1 on October 28, 2015 the National Seismic Monitoring Centre of PMD, started investigating the reasons of increasing frequency of earthquake around the country. A comprehensive report was formulated as an outcome of the research contributed by the scientists of Seismic Monitoring Centre. 4.5 Up gradation and Revision of National Seismic Macro and Micro Zoning Maps of Pakistan After the strong Hindu Kush earthquake of M8.1 on October 28, 2015, upon the request of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), PMD and Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) carried out Micro Zonation of Pakistan. 5. Training / Education

5.1 Capacity Building of PMD: Training Abroad & Human Resource Development

For the capacity building of its scientists, PMD has been sending potential scientists abroad for postgraduate studies and higher trainings (MS/Ph.D etc.) in Meteorology, Hydrology, Seismology and Climate Sciences with support by the Government of Pakistan and cooperation by international organizations, research institutions and foreign universities. So far, twenty (20) officers have joined back to PMD after completion of their higher studies from United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, China Sweden and Thailand.

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During 2015, one (01) PMD officer proceeded to Canada for undertaking Post-Doc in Meteorology from “Environment Canada”.

One (01) scientist proceeded abroad for undertaking 3-years Ph.D in Meteorology at the King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia under the award of scholarship by KAU, while three (03) scientists are doing their PhD (Meteorology) program at KAU since September 2014.

During June, 2015, one (01) scientist proceeded to China for doing PhD in Meteorology at the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, CAS, China under their fellowship award.

During October 2015, one scientist proceeded abroad for doing 3-years M.Sc (Hydrology) at Russian State Hydrometeorlogical University, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation under award of WMO Fellowship.

Whereas four (04) PMD scientists have been doing their Ph.D (Meteorology) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China since 2013. These scientists have been awarded scholarship by the CAS for their PhD program and are expected to return to by the end of year 2016.

During August 2015, One PMD scientist proceeded to Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST) for doing MS (Meteorology) under scholarship offered by the NUIST-China.

While two (02) officers are undertaking PhD (Meteorology) at the University of Hamburg, Germany (under award of fellowship) and the other for PhD in Hydrometeorology at the University of Arizona, USA under Fulbright Scholarship program respectively.

During 2015, four (04) PMD scientists joined back after completion of their Ph.D (Meteorology) from China. One (01) more scientist joined back to PMD after completion of M.S. in Hydrology and Flood related Disaster Management from International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM), Japan under generous support by JICA/Government of Japan while one scientist is still doing such program in Japan. During 2015, around 50 fellowships were availed by PMD scientists for attending short-term trainings/ workshops/ seminars abroad. These fellowships were offered mainly by WMO, ICIMOD, ICTP, IOC-UNESCO, CMA, JICA, JAXA, NARBO, UNESCO, UN-ESCAP, SMRC, APCC Korea etc. 5.2 Training of Met. Personnel at IMG, Karachi

During 2015-2016, various regular and special courses on meteorology were also conducted

at PMD’s Institute of Meteorology & Geophysics (IMG), Karachi for in-service Met personnel

of PMD as well as for Met officials from other relevant organizations including Met branch of

Pakistan Air Force and Navy. These courses include Initial and Preliminary Meteorology

Courses (WMO BIP–MT), Basic Forecasting Course (WMO BIP–M) and others.

5.3 Training to the Met Officials from neighbouring Countries

Pakistan Meteorological Department started to extend its training facilities to the National

Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) of the neighbouring countries for their

capacity building through WMO Voluntary Cooperation Programme in 2008. For this

purpose, special Preliminary Meteorology Courses (BIP-MT) were conducted in 2008, 2009

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and 2010 at PMD’s Institute of Meteorology & Geophysics (IMG), Karachi in which 31 Met

Officials from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka got benefitted

from these courses.

In 2015, upon request of Department of Meteorology, Sri Lanka, three (03) Met personnel

were accommodated in 76th Preliminary Meteorology Course at IMG, Karachi. Air travel and

stipend of participants was borne by Govt. of Sri Lanka and PMD provided waiver towards

tuition fee and free accommodation in hostel facilities of IMG Karachi. Similarly in February

2016, three (03) more Met officials from Department of Meteorology, Sri Lanka have been

enrolled in 77th Preliminary Meteorology Course.

Group Photo – 76th Preliminary Meteorology Course

Group Photo – 77th Preliminary Meteorology Course

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6. Research

6.1 Development of Future climate scenarios

The Research & Development Division of PMD has developed high resolution climate

change scenarios for Pakistan by downscaling General Circulation Models (GCMs) use in

IPCC AR5. The climate scenarios are at 25km and 50km grid resolution on the basis of

Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP); RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 emission scenarios.

The future projections data (climate) is discriminated to different research institutes,

government and non-governmental agencies in the form of DVD for further research in the

field of climate disaster mitigation and adaptation. The same data is also available on PMD

website with open access.

7. Publications

PMD started publication of its biennial research journal namely “Pakistan Journal of

Meteorology” in 2004. PJOM has got eighty-one (81) citations in the year 2015 for different

published papers. During 2015, PMD published two issues (No. 22 and 23) of “Pakistan

Journal of Meteorology”. These issues contain 13 research papers which were contributed

by the scientists of PMD in addition to foreign researchers. Pakistan Journal of Meteorology

can be accessed at the following web link:

http://www.pmd.gov.pk/rnd/rndweb/rnd_new/journal.php#22

Scientists of PMD also contributed (both as lead authors and co authors) in around ten

(10) research papers which have been published in various national and international

journals like Climate Dynamics, Journal of Glaciology, Journal of Earth Science &

Climatic Change and /or presented at international scientific conferences and have been

published in the proceedings of these conferences/ seminars.

Presentations:

A number of presentations were delivered at different local and international fora to convey the results and development of R&D Division of PMD.