Q1.
In 2023, the National Disaster Management Authority set up an AWS at a glacial lake of Sikkim at an altitude of more than 4800 metres above sea level. The AWS provides early information about upcoming weather conditions.
Answer
An Automated Weather Station is a self-operating system that uses sensors to measure and record temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, precipitation and atmospheric pressure — and it does all this without any human being present.
Why a glacial lake, and why an AWS:
- At over 4800 metres, on ice, no observer could sit and take readings four times a day through the year. An AWS can.
- Glacial lakes are dammed only by loose ice and rubble. Heavy rain or a sudden warm spell can burst that dam and send a wall of water down the valley — a glacial lake outburst flood.
- Readings sent down from the AWS give early information — hours of warning for the towns and hydel projects downstream in the Teesta valley.
Why AWS are spreading: They are used in agriculture, aviation, navigation and environmental monitoring, and they deliver accurate, timely data at fixed intervals without human intervention — which means weather can now be measured in deserts, on mountains, on buoys at sea and on glaciers, exactly the places where the most dangerous weather begins.
Did you know? Sikkim's own history shows why this matters — the state has seen a devastating glacial-lake flood in the Teesta basin. Instruments placed at the source are the cheapest form of protection a mountain state can buy.