Speaker : Dr A Chandrasekar
Outstanding Professor (Retd.) Department of Earth and Space Sciences
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Trivandrum 695547
@ : chandra@iist.ac.in
Chairperson : Prof. P S Goel
Hon.Visiting Professor, School of Natural Sciences and Engineering, NIAS @: dr.psgoel@nias.res.in; dr.psgoel@gmail.com
Date : 13th May 2026
Time : 9.30 AM
Venue : Lecture Hall
Abstract: Odisha experienced landfall of two tropical cyclones TC04B and TC05B, in October 1999, the latter known as Odisha Supercyclone, one after the other in a space of 12 days. It is suggested that the first tropical cyclone TC04B provided an “ocean like situation” over the coastal land region, providing the appropriate land conditions that would facilitate the intensification of the second tropical cyclone TC05B, indicating a clear illustration of the “Brown Ocean Effect”. Two mesoscale WRF simulations were conducted, with the control and experimental runs, differing solely in the following aspect : the initial cyclonic vortex corresponding to the first tropical cyclone was removed at the initial time in the experimental run, while it remained in the control run. The control run simulated a very strong second tropical cyclone while the experimental run simulated a weak second tropical cyclone. Results of the control run reveal that the rainfall associated with the first tropical cyclone increased soil moisture of the coastal land regions over Odisha and helped in bolstering the intensification of the second tropical cyclone, bringing out the importance of Brown Ocean Effect.
About the speaker: Dr Chandrasekar was faculty at Department of Physics and Meteorology at IIT Kharagpur from July 1988 till June 2009 and then moved to Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Trivandrum in July 2009 and served till 30 April 2026. Dr Chandrasekar’s research interests are with Atmospheric modelling, Data Assimilation, and Land-atmosphere interaction studies. Dr Chandrasekar has written two books titled “Basics of Atmospheric Science” in 2010 and “Numerical Methods for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences” in 2022.