The eleventh international workshop on technical and scientific aspects of Mesosphere-Stratosphere-Troposphere radar (MST-11) was held at Tirupati during 11-15 December 2006. This is the second time that India hosted this workshop. About 300 scientists from 13 countries, including those from U.S, Canada, Germany, Italy, France, U.K and Japan participated in the workshop.

The President of India, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, inaugurated the workshop at the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL) campus, Gadanki, about 40 km from Tirupati. In his inaugural address, Dr. Kalam stressed the need for atmospheric and space research with emphasis on human benefit from such research in India. During the address, the President recalled many historical events that became milestones in the atmospheric and space research in India.

The President of India (third from right) inaugurating the workshop. Mr. G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO (to President’s left) and Prof. D. Narayana Rao, Director, NARL (to President’s right) are also seen.

He described in detail how the space age began in India with the sounding rocket programme to investigate earth’s atmosphere. Since extreme climatic conditions such as drought and floods can have devastating effects on agriculture, Dr Kalam stressed the need for improving the long-term weather forecasting and suggested to refine the Indian standard atmosphere and to characterise atmospheric properties from sea level to 2,000 km altitude. The President was of the view that MST radars can play an important role in conjunction with high-resolution satellite data for refining and enlarging atmospheric prediction.

Presiding over the inauguraral function of MST-11, Mr G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO said that NARL was making significant scientific contributions in studying the structure and dynamics of lower, middle and upper atmosphere. Welcoming the delegates, Prof D Narayana Rao, Director, National Atmospheric Research Laboratory said that the Indian MST Radar is rated as the second largest among such radars in the world. He also mentioned that several facilities like Lower Atmospheric Wind Profiler, Rayleigh Lidar, Boundary Layer Lidar, Sodium Lidar, Doppler Sodar, Disdrometer, Optical Rain Gauge and Dual Frequency GPS Receiver are colocated with MST radar making NARL a vibrant centre in studying different regions of the atmosphere in the tropics.

More than 300 papers were presented during MST-11 workshop. Important aspects of MST radar covering radar scattering processes in the atmosphere, scattering from ionospheric irregularities, instrumentation and signal processing, meteorology with atmospheric radars, mean winds, radar temperatures, waves and tides in MST region and atmospheric forcing and mixing were discussed.