Thamban Meloth
National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), Goa
Thamban Meloth is the Director of NCPOR under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India. He has made pioneering contributions to polar and cryosphere studies in India and was instrumental in establishing India’s first state-of-the-art Ice Core Laboratory at NCPOR. His research primarily focuses on climate variability and its impact on polar ice sheets and glaciers. He has undertaken multiple scientific expeditions to challenging and remote areas of Antarctica, the Arctic, the Himalayas, and the Southern Ocean.He has been received many recognitions for his scientific contributions such as the prestigious National Geoscience Award by the Government of India. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Norwegian Scientific Academy for Polar Research (NVP). He is also a member of various national and international committees and panels of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), and International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) Council. He was elected Fellow of IASc in 2024.
Session 2A: Lectures by Fellows/Associates
Chairperson: Vinod K Gaur, Bengaluru
Polar Warming and Tropical Teleconnections
The polar regions are a critical component of the Earth’s climate system and have complex, non-linear linkages with low latitudes through the ocean and atmosphere. They are also very sensitive to global changes. While both the Arctic and West Antarctica have experienced dramatic changes in recent decades during a time of increasing global mean temperature, the relative roles of local versus remote forcings on such changes are not well understood. In a rapidly changing world, the two-way linkages between the poles and tropics can play key roles in the climatic evolution of these sensitive regions. Such tropical–polar teleconnections operate on a range of timescales and are found to have a dominant role through Rossby wave dynamics. Recent studies have highlighted that a rapid decline in Arctic sea-ice during the recent decade is increasing extreme precipitation events over India. Studies have also revealed that Antarctica is witnessing an increased frequency of extreme events and incursions of Atmospheric Rivers (AR) that have the potential to increase the loss of coastal ice shelves, impacting the health of its huge ice sheets. Although recent studies have contributed greatly to our understanding of polar–tropical teleconnections, many aspects of these linkages remain poorly understood and require further study using a combination of observational, model, and proxy-based climate records.