India’s Scientific Endeavours in the Arctic

The Arctic Ocean and the surrounding regions are one of the important areas of the globe that not only govern the earth’s climate but also record its past climatic history. The region is also an excellent harbinger of future change, because the signals or clues that signify climate change are so much stronger in the Arctic than elsewhere. The thermohaline circulation of the oceanic water masses at high latitudes of the Arctic has been invoked as a potential cause of abrupt climate change on all timescales. However, the fundamental aspects of the circulation remain poorly understood. The Arctic region is also of special significance to the Indian subcontinent as several studies indicate an apparent connection between the polar atmospheric processes and the Indian monsoon intensity. The forcing functions of this connection are however, a matter of academic debate. A comprehensive understanding of the Arctic is therefore of special importance for a monsoon-dependent agrarian economy like India.