Artwork by Saurabh Shandilya
From conversation on:
Apr 05, 2021
Listen to full episode
“With every drop of water you drink, every breath you take, you’re connected to the sea, no matter where on earth you live†- Sylvia Earle, marine biologist. The rains, be it the mango showers that herald the end of the summer or the torrential downpours accompanying cyclones, have always invoked a wide range of emotions in everyone’s heart. But did you know that the oceans that surround us actually play a very important role in driving the rains? Covering more than 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface, the ocean is indeed the blue heart of our planet. The oceans apart from being home to an astonishing number of lifeforms, also control the climate especially playing an important role in the monsoon cycles. But such an important entity still remains vastly unexplored. In our conversation, Dr. Roxy Mathew Koll took us on an exciting ride, giving us a sneak peak into the life of an oceanographer who studies the forces of weather that shape the world.
Oceans are huge reservoirs of heat. Energy equivalent to four Hiroshima atomic bombs is absorbed by the ocean every second due to global warming.
ABOUT THE GUEST
Dr. Roxy M. Koll Climate Scientist, Indian Institute of Meteorology, Pune
Dr. Roxy Mathew Koll is a veteran researcher in the field of oceanography, dealing with Ocean atmosphere dynamics and interaction. He is currently a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology. Dr. Koll completed his Master of Science in Physical Oceanography from the Cochin University of Science & Technology and went on to pursue his PhD in Ocean and Atmospheric Dynamics from the Hokkaido University in Japan. Following which, he joined the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change in Italy as a research associate. He has also held positions as a visiting scientist at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction in the United states. Alongside his research, Dr. Koll is also a lead author at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, commonly abbreviated as IPCC - a scientific body instituted by the United Nations, whose goal is to provide information to the global community regarding climate change and its adverse effects. Recognised as one among the top 2% scientists ranked by Stanford University, Dr. Koll is working on the frontier of climate change research. Modelling unpredictable forces of nature like the vast Indo-Pacific oceans and making predictions about one of the lifelines of our nation, the Indian monsoon, is something he does on a regular basis. His work helps supplement humanity’s arsenal of knowledge in the battle against climate change.
Transcript
Shaun Ethan Phangcho (Host 1) :
Welcome to the fifth episode of Zeroing In Season 2 the Science podcast I am Shaun and hosting this episode with me today is Arun.S . The Guest for the day is a veteran researcher and a field of oceanography dealing with ocean atmosphere dynamics and interaction. He completed his Master of Science in physical Oceanography In Cochin University of Science and Technology and went on to Pursue his PhD. In Ocean and Atmospheric dynamics in Hokkaido University in Japan. He joined the Euro Mediterranean Center for Climate change, Italy as research associate. He's also held positions as a Visiting scientist at the Pacific Marine Environment Laboratory and the National Centers in Environment Prediction at the United States. He's currently a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology . Alongside his research, he is also a lead author at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, commonly abbreviated to IPCC, ( Scientific body ) instituted by the United Nations whose goal is to provide information to the local community regarding climate change and its adverse effects. Recognize this one among the top two person scientists ranked by Stanford University. Our guest is on the frontier of climate change research. Modeling unpredictable forces on nature. I go fast in the Pacific oceans and make predictions about one of the life lines of our nation. The Indian monsoon is something he does on a regular basis. His work helps supplement humanity's arsenal of knowledge and the battle against climate change. In our conversation with him today, we get. A sneak peek Into the life of an oceanographer who studies the forces Weather and climate change that shaped over a very warm welcome to Dr. Roxy Matthew.
Dr. Roxy Mathew Koll :
Thanks Arun and Shaun and all IIST students for this nice welcome to this evening session and I'm really happy that you are trying to connect science with people. That's what we should do, because many scientists keep science to themselves and don't take it to the public, and I'm happy that you guys are doing.
Arun S. (Host 2) :
Thank you, Sir. This was indeed one of the Founding principles on which the Zeroing in was started so I would like to start off the conversation with a small discussion about your very grassroots. So where does this passion with the oceans and climate come from? Ideas and curiosity are. Like as a young child.
Dr. Koll :
Yeah, so when I was growing up I didn't have much idea about oceans and all, but I used to read a lot of books and trading and observing and my parents were teachers in physics and English so there is always some inclination to the scientific and literary load while I was growing up. But that's not where I had Fun actually reading books on wildlife. I don't know if you heard about others like Gerald Durrell, so there are these particular books by Gerard on wildlife that caught my attention. He was a naturalist and writer, and he writes books on his life in Greek. And I wanted to be like him, a Naturalist. So this interest prompted me to go out for bird watching and animal Service. When I was doing my undergrad and. At the same time I was very much fascinated by science fiction books by Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, and Stephen Hawkings, so I wanted to pursue astrophysics and was curious about the Stardust around us and inside us. Probably it was all part Of my pursuit after answers to philosophical questions in life, that cookie inside while we are growing up. So anyways, it was not the land or the space that took my passion and I jumped from outer space to the ocean. Because I found that I had the right mix of science and nature in that, and though I said that we are all made of Stardust, we evolved from the oceans, right? So I want you guys to take a deep breath. Yeah, did you? Around 50% of the oxygen that we breathe comes from phytoplankton, and these are microscopic plants. In the ocean. These phytoplankton also made the base of the food chain and we know less about the seas around us that support us. So that used to intrigue me and that is how I got into learning more about the nature around us. So getting back to your question of how, how my formative years were and what led to what I am, I think reading and observing around had to have. Lot to do with the way I am now.
Arun :
Yes, Sir, it is quite incredible. But the ocean which surrounds us, which people take for granted, is very valuable for our survival and sustenance.As you rightly pointed out, we would like to know more about the generation as our conversation progresses. Moving on another aspect that we research about is climate systems and climate change. Weather being such a volatile phenomenon, how do you go about choosing what aspect of weather systems that we want to study, and what are some challenges that you face while carrying out research?
Dr. Koll :
Well, yes, very much. I think Especially in India we are almost every year facing challenges due To climate change. Right now you and I we are going through hot summer and the temperatures are like 3-5 degrees above normal than what we used to feel several years back so those are the kind of questions or quantifications that I'm looking into and trying to understand how climate change is changing the temperatures around us, how it is making life difficult for us. Recently I was trying to get into exploring the links with health as well and there are extreme units almost every year we like. If you take 2020 year 2020, we saw back to back cyclones, so we had a hot summer pre monsoon period and we were expecting. Monsoon rains, but we saw back to back cyclones, one hitting on the East Coast of India and the other hitting on the West Coast of India. Just one week difference right? Cyclone Amphan and Cyclone Nisarga. So these kind of events make my work challenging and exciting at the same time .
And It's a challenge for all of us, I mean as humans, we all. Experienced these kinds of extreme events. And the heat of climate change.
Shaun :
Climate does sound challenging as we're putting it forward towards now, and it's as fascinating as the research work you've done.Coming to your Work regarding the warming of the Indo Pacific oceans, which has been a recurring theme in your publications. We've observed unpredicted trends like that of the sea surface temperature. Can you talk more about this work? How would you account for all the various factors that would play a role in such a chaotic system like the ocean?
Dr. Koll :
So we are living in the tropics and we are surrounded by tropical oceans. It's not just a surface, it's deep as well. The average depth of the ocean is around 4 kilometers. Now the interesting thing is that water has more heat capacity compared to air or land. So which means that water can absorb more heat and this property is called specific heat capacity. Yeah, and because of that, the oceans are warm. Slower, but it holds that heat for a long time. And because it's a huge reservoir, the amount of heat it absorbs is huge. So our research shows that 90 to 93% of the heat. Additionally, due to global warming heat is absorbed by the oceans and somebody made a very very interesting quantification of that heat which is absorbed by the oceans. So they say that. It's equivalent to the energy from four Hiroshima atomic bombs, every second so we can multiply that by the number of units and number of hours and days for the indirect period during which global warming has happened. So that means the amount of heat is absorbed by the oceans. Now the thing is that among these oceans, the Indonesian is one of the fastest warming. Or that Indo Pacific area including the Indian Ocean? And the best Pacific region. And this is reflected in the sea surface temperatures that we were talking about. And generally, this agent itself is warmer even without climate change, even without considering global warming scenario and all Indian Ocean is the warmest version compared to the other options . We have to think that the Atlantic and the Pacific are open to the North and South poles, right? But the Indian Ocean is the Landlord from the north. We have Indian land, and that means the waters in the Indian Ocean doesn't get flushed out to the post very easily and the heat is reserved there, right in the Indian Ocean. So it is already the warmest ocean and it's also warming at a faster rate compared to the other tropical oceans. It is changing the monsoons that we feel and See every year it is changing the weather systems around. It is changing the way the ecosystems, the coral reefs, the fisheries Right and also it has far reaching impacts. So one of the key studies from our lab was on how this Indo Pacific warming is affecting weather systems across the globe. It is actually changing patterns, notably across South Asia and the monsoon, but also on whether systems start to initiate from the Indian Ocean. These are called the marine drilling oscillations. These work on sub seasonal levels, but we can consider them as cloud bands which start from the Indian Ocean. No, we swear to the Pacific and then to the Atlantic, so all these kinds of other systems that even affect the US and other countries versus South America and other nations are also being changed because of the intense warming in the Indo Pacific region.
Shaun :
Global weather events and their connection to the.Entire world is captivating to Sydney's and also how they affect the Indian peninsula. We would now like to talk about the Indian summer monsoon rainfall, which is another aspect of your research work along with weather forecasting and modeling. Generally, weather forecast models predict up to a Week or 10 days. How do you make predictions about the Indian monsoon or in general any monsoon on a larger timescale. Like a year or so and what are the main challenges involved?
Dr. Koll :
Yeah, even monsoon is one of the strongest seasons even down to grow in an agrarian country like India where we depend highly on seasonal rains. Monsoon assumes huge importance right? Which is why we need to know when it will rain and how much. It will rain. And from our Scientific point of view. We are in constant marathon involve monsoon forecast skills so that is one way where we can formally address these issues of changing weather and climate systems so weather systems in the tropics are much more chaotic and complex compared to those at higher latitudes like in Europe or US so we have fast developing smaller weather systems while in Europe and US they have slow developing larger weather systems that are easier to predict And though monsoon is a fairly organized system, it is titled load many environmental variables, such as temperatures over the land and the ocean that we talked about conditions in the atmosphere and such So that means we need to tie up all these links, understand all these links, and put in your borders So monsoon forecasting is about making sure that these mechanistic links are possible . Now forecast models also, and climate models that we work from. They are huge programs, there might be written C language or even Fortran and replicate the physics that we know about the Earth system. The only reason that we use a crack in our models is because these models are built on the giants of the past. So option blockers and atmospheric scientists have been programming these weather and climate models for a long time, and we are pulling up on the same levels, improving it scheme by scheme program by program, algorithm by algorithm So that's that's how we end up using a mix of Fortran, C, MPI, parallel programming in supercomputing machines so we are super computing machines here One of the fastest Super Computing machines In India, in IIT and their work is on these machines to make these climate models. So all that data that we collect over the Russian Lander atmosphere are given as inputs to this program, which then change shares out the. Data for the future. So we know the basic physics of how the product works, but there are final details at finite space time scales that are complex and hard to replicate. This comes out as the uncertainty in. The weather prediction. So we are trying to work on these uncertainties and gaps in. Predictions and observations and improve our forecasts. In fact, we have better accuracy than earlier now. For example, we talk about the Cyclones right? Like settling for nothing at all but second focus, our input is tremendous and life slows due to this disastrous come down in 1999 when I was undergrad. Like you guys, a super cyclone hit Odisha And 10s of thousands of people died, and those were the times when forecasting waves in a very primitive stage, and these are like 5-8 numbers of fatalities, right! But compared to now, the losses are confined to two or three digit numbers, and that is due to constant improvement in weather the disaster.
Arun :
Yes indeed, talking about Cyclones your most recent work.The most recent set of works they will talk about you want to actually place the reasons behind the formation of cyclones like Oki and Connie, one of which was because of the anomalous heating of the ocean just days before the cyclone actually formed. So can this work be extrapolated in predicting similarly Cyclones in the future? How does this work fit in? The general scheme of predicting cyclones.
Dr. Koll :
Oh yeah, so I told you that the central focus is how we deal with time right? But there are new challenges that we face. Due to climate change. So the cyclone forecasting thing that has a single race is based on a basic climate where it is not drastically changing. Now we start with many of the recent cyclones like folkier, fanning or even Arfken. They are intensifying rapidly and this is because of ocean warming cyclones. Broader energy from the oceans. And the warmer Indian Ocean is assisting them to intensify quite quickly. So if you take the case of a cyclone out for another oki, or some of the other cycles that I talked about, they intensified from a category one cyclone. This is the case of cycle mouth, and it intensifies from a category one cyclone that's about 100 kilometers from speed. To a category 5 cycle which is about 200 two 150 kilometers P in less than 24 hours. So think about that you are going to sleep thinking that it's a record metrics cyclone and when you wake up it's a super cycle and it has. Already hit you. So it gives you less time to monitor or forecast these kinds of cyclones and our weather models are still finding them. Challenging to pick up these kind of rapid intensification cyclones so the interesting part about our study is that we type these rapid intensification to the sea surface temperature anomalies in the Indian Ocean and if we are able to incorporate these changes in the models accurately with better observations and with better understanding, so the problem with cyclone forecast is that many of these models do not include a actively evolving ocean. So if we include that also in this program. This model we might be able to improve our forecast on active intensification.
Arun :
Yes, Sir, it is quite assuring to know that our prediction models are becoming more efficient day by day and that a continuous group is going on to improve it. But on the other hand, it is also alarming that extreme events like this are occurring at a frequent rate and it is not just limited to cyclones alone, we superflood. Extreme rainfall , severe drought happening all over the country, and in fact the world. Do you think that this is going to be the new norm in the coming future? Or maybe even get worse as time progresses?
Dr. Koll :
Yeah, so on that note I wanted to say how other than cyclones, how are other systems also changing? The monsoon is also changing. Our research shows that while the total amount of rainfall that we receive annually has declined over time, it was in most parts of India. But at the same time, while this total rainfall is decreasing, the number of heavy rains, that is, in short periods, those are increasing, so that is a situation where we have long dry periods, intermittent with short heavy rainfall that leads to floods. Of course you, if you take the case of kerala we came across. Back to back floods . Actually, 3 years of floods. It will be 2018 kerala floods 2019 floods and 2020 kerala floods. right? If you look back actually you could see that 2015 and 2016 they actually. Drought years for karalla, so these kinds of conditions, drying conditions and flooding conditions are going up. So releasing a climate change assessment report. Our institute recently came out with a climate change assessment report for India and surrounding regions. So what this report and our own research shows is that these extreme events, whether it is changes in monsoon patterns or the cyclones they are likely to continue into. Richard, that means we need to monitor these changes through data observations and also make sure that adapting to and mitigating these changes are our priority. So it's not just cyclones and weather systems over India that are changing across the. Indian Ocean like there? Events like heat waves, marine heatwaves, if you are interested we can talk more about that later so all these kind of extreme events, whether it's in the ocean or over the land, they are already showing their signs of increasing and they're going to further increase in the future so we, we need to be ready now.
Shaun :
I noticed how marine heatwaves came up while you were describing extreme weather phenomena.A serious indication that your work also talks about is the increasing frequency of marine heat waves and how it affects coral reefs.A wide variety of fishes, and a general oceanic ecosystem. Could you tell us what the consequences are?
Dr. Koll :
Yeah, so that's one of the interesting research that we are doing now. It's about marine heatwaves, so these are like heat waves over the land. But over the ocean, they're over the ocean, and because of ocean warming, they are popping up here and there in the Indian Ocean at sporadic events, and these temperature anomalies can take up to. Like 5 degrees Celsius anomaly and can last for several days and these marine heat waves. They can kill corals. Corals are very tolerant to warm water as they are very sensitive to high temperatures and chorals over soft numbers around them cold Suzanne and this is the number that gives the color and protection to these calls. So what happens is that when you have very high converges. This bleaches out these membranes and then it happens several times. These corals get killed so mine is popping out sporadically here and there in India. Motion is killing many corals for if you consider the case of India, we have around 5 correlated systems so that there have been corals in the Gulf of Munnar which is in the South of Bengal which appeared a lot of correlation in this region. And they affect Fisheries as well. So apart from killing corals We are finding this multi place because these are high temperature animals right? And they last for several days. Some of them last for several weeks. Successful they can in fact impact various systems like cyclones and the monsoons. But all these researches in the primitive station we are actually excited about. We are doing this exciting research, tracking and dissecting is more and more stress and their impact on the ecosystem and also the weather systems as well.
Arun :
Yes, Sir, so I wanted to ask about this research itself. We are talking about how we calculate our research regarding the corals and other such ecosystems that are there in the ocean in your lab. So how does this refer to go on? How do you monitor the effect of the anomalies on living creatures In the sea ?
Dr. Koll :
So a lot of our study uses satellite data and that is good enough to monitor and measure environmental parameters like the ocean conditions or atmosphere conditions like temperature, humidity, rate for society in duration, built in surface currents and all. But then when we come to oceans, like if you want to learn about the phytoplankton in the deeper oceans and all we need are either instruments. Deployed at these locations. So one of them is called the Argo. These float in direction but go down up to depths of 1000 meters at a 10 day interval. So every 10 day they come up and send the data back to us. So these might float around the ocean. They may not have a fixed location though. They tend to be. Around that particular. Now there's another kind of instrument. These are called Moorix and they. Are fixed with weight To the bottom.And they have sensors throughout the depth on a cable from the surface of The deep ocean And on top they also are at towers that use our sensors to measure the atmospheric data. So we use these kind of instruments to measure and track any ocean ministry parameters including phytoplankton.Also used to measure the chlorophyll condom to detect the phytoplankton version.That's the life in the ocean.And all these data are related conveniently from the top of the meetings or the other floats and we get to use this data and we also use models along with this data. That is observed to be another way to go around taking this data is by having an ocean. Cruises research courses in the ocean.And collect the data I have myself participated in some other courses collecting data For for some of some of our studies.
Arun :
Now that you mentioned cruises which are quite remarkable to me. At least that how were you able to carry out experiments, take observations on the open sea, away from the comfort of land and a stable ground? So how exactly were you able to set up a laboratory on a ship and how was the experience like in general?
Dr. Koll :
My first research cruise was in the Arabian Sea in 2003. I remember it was in the month of March and we were studying the ocean and mostly conditions that lead to the monsoon.So this before the monsoon we study how the ocean atmosphere is involved in the Arabian Sea and assist the monsoon.It was a new and challenging experience. We used instruments called CTD, which stands for conductivity, temperature and depth. It measures the salinity, temperature and other water conditions at various steps under level 1000 meters. So we move around in the open seas or the ship, then we stop. At a particular location, which. Is of interest to us and then we dip this. Instrument up to a particular depth.It takes several hours and then we bring it back and measure. Measure the water conditions. We also take some samples so that we can study the microscopic biological elements in it at the same time at these stations where we stop, we also send. Something called radio Sound Waves in the atmosphere That we showed them into the atmosphere. These are hydrogen balloons fitted with sensors that measure the winds. The temperature and humidity of the air column. Depth . Though we have satellites to collect data it can reach the depths of the ocean beyond the surface or it can get accurate measurements throughout the entire column. So these cruises gave us high quality data that can help us in understanding the pre monsoon and monsoon conditions. Now this. Ship experience itself was new. Trust me, we were out in the open sea for more. Then a month with about 30 other researchers, you could in fact compare it to the current lockdown situation. And here movement is restricted to the ship.You see the same people every day. And if you go out on the deck, he said the. Vast expanse of water around the same scene. Same people, and there was no Internet either. Time which means. No communication with the outside world other than a few bullet points of news that came in. If I go every morning and I think it was during this time that we heard about the 2003 Iraq war. Through these warning messages, there was also work of cricket going home at that time and we had to satisfy ourselves with two lines of Match summary the next day. Yeah, but fortunately there was a lot of. Open space on the ship deck that we used to play cricket ourselves. Yeah but we had to stop when we lost. All the balls To the sea I'm joking, we were really careful about that and, later again in 2006 or 7 I got a chance for a research cruise with an American and Japanese researchers, and that was in West Pacific on almost a similar mission They said dolphins jumping and there was also some flying fishes whenever they see some movement in this in the sea, they glide. That's their role mechanism of escaping their predators, and they jump onto the ship and we got to see some flying fishes with the long fins and all that was a beautiful memory.
Arun :
Just listening to you talk about such beautiful extraordinary science and experiences.I am pretty sure a lot.of us will. Be inspired to go on similar sea adventures ourselves. But now I would like to go on a tangent and talk about your role at IPCC. So could you maybe describe what IPCC is and the role it plays in climate research and about your position as one of the lead authors there.
Dr. Koll :
My work with IPCC The intergovernmental panel on climate change that assists the theory of climate change and brings out .Reports it was beautiful. This is a group of experts, scientific experts in various fields of climate science sitting together along with social scientists and economists, and finally with policymakers also to tell the world how our carbon emissions are changing everything around us and the fine details of it , IPCC. Also brings out l'aimant summary of reports that go into media also At regional levels. And now the big task is how national and local governments respond to it. At that moment we need to see climate change as an urgent political issue. We need to elect governments. Both at local and national level that give priority to mitigating and adapting. To climate change. And it's actually a bit disheartening that this is not an important election agenda. Despite India facing several extreme weather events every year, but Is climate change a point of discussion anywhere? I don't think so. And all 1.4 black people have died in the last few decades due to extreme weather events alone. Will last 50 years ok, And so it is high time that we plac climate change as a priority. Though IPCC is mostly about after seeing the climate change, it doesn't prescribe on what to do. That is left for local and national governments.
Arun :
Speaking about taking up action when we were doing our background research. We came across this. Very interesting story about you and how we used embroidery too, to better communicate with the local community, so could you talk about that?
Dr. Koll :
Oh yeah, so my wife is a wonderful embroider and she also teachers and poetry, both Indian embroidery and western in different way so she also did some nice embroidery where she tried to convert some of my research ideas and research work to show how the climate is changing, and I think that's a wonderful media you can. You can take any media, whether it be painting or any other kind of art or Different color shows Even importantly, to appeal to people because if I go to a public stage and talk about climate change, maybe the people coming and Listening to me might be only those scientifically oriented or highly educated people, right? But at the same time, there are other ways in which we can communicate science to different diverse kinds of populations, and that is what we try to do with them proactively. And also that is 1 artistic form where we can involve local communities as well and they're having different initiatives from different parts of the world to include this kind of medium for communicating the essence of climate change to the public. It's amazing how artistic forms can be such an efficient means of communication. On a more personal note, how does a typical day in the life of a climate Scientist look ke.Well, so when I also research student I have a lot of time and a lot of activities.Lot of interest and a lot of things to do.I told you I I used To read books.A lot I used to take a lot of photographs.I used to go around. I used to go to bed watching, tracking all these kinds of activities along with research. So later I got married and I have two kids now and one thing important for a scientist is a very good balance between yours. Family life and your scientific life.And that's what I'm trying to do so so every day my mornings might be about interacting with the kids or getting them ready for their school and coming to office.I have to admit that these days, especially once you once you reach a mid career level or senior career level in as a scientist. Your days are bothered with Emails, OK? When I talk about these, they are also about science. This could be research queries from other students that may be my own students, or it could be my editorial work. So I am editing certain journals, so I have to edit or review certain manuscripts, otherwise they will get delayed. I have media queries. Every time there is some extreme event happening in India, there is a cyclone going on or threats in some part of India or some other parts. Discuss about it and I like it because I want to communicate my science. So that is one part of daily rotation responding to email. and then I go to work on my models on my supercomputing machine, which is quite a good opportunity if you get a chance. So that's also interesting. So if I end up working on my model or some experiment that I'm doing I end up spending. hours on it because it involves a lot of coding and thinking and it needs devoted time. So I spend some of my time with my students. I have a very good research team. And we do it once every week. We have lab meetings, so I made my large numbers of casual meetings and I let them talk about their research, although worries so it moves from casual to scientific to cash roll, and so it's it's. One and after those three days we go for tea. Have more discussions there. There are casual discussions, of course less scientific and then I go back home to my kids and my wife. And how time we've done. Those are the ways I spend my work days, yeah.
Shaun :
Yeah, as you've mentioned that you've reached a mid-career path in your life Going forward. How do you think your research directions as well as ideas in general life would evolve over time?
Dr. Koll :
Yeah, I was actually speaking. They learn to explore science and consistently look for this task where I can investigate how the climate is interacting with this world. For example, every monsoon the birds, butterflies and dragonflies. They migrate from Africa to India.And then they return to and this group is called the Great Indian Ocean Flyway, where we travel from Africa to India and in fact sometimes they will grow up to China and come back. So how do the wings underwater systems during the flight & there are there year to year changes in the monsoon? Reflected in their numbers and the time they appear, these birds and butterflies appear, including those affected by climate change. These are interesting questions now on the citizen science network. You might be aware that there are a lot of data, so like the IBO initiative by data that is probably lower of the. You know, and covid gave me time where I listen to webinars and insights from naturalists using this data. So I'm eagerly looking forward to working with this biologist and naturalist. Yeah there is One Direction I am looking forward to. Another one is to see how the changes in climate and months. One is affecting the health conditions and spread of disease in our cities. So we have several challenges one day that the study is transdisciplinary. It's not just with weather systems, but we are dealing with health also now right? And the other issue is that health data is hard to get because many times these hospitals or municipality's don't record the health data or digitized them properly and they are sensitive to the beta because of many issues and they don't want to because it involves fatalities also. So they don't want to. Divert that information. But however we are making some small but gradual strides in our understanding, and if you are able to model the links between climate variables and certain diseases, we can use that to predict how health conditions will be. In the future. And then the administration and health department can take precautionary measures based on that, right?
Arun :
Right, sir these research avenues sound very promising, and are in fact quite ingenious. Once again, did you have any directions that you wished you had work done, but couldn't say an alternate career path? Something that we would have done if you were not doing what you're doing now ?
Dr. Koll :
Well, there was a time when I wanted to be a philosopher and there was a time when I wanted to be a writer. I like art but never became an artist. But I try to have some creativity when I try to make my triggers for publications and all I try to put in some creativity in there where it's my writing style or drawing style or something like that. I used to be an amateur photographer . If you go to one of my websites you can see some of my old photographs. Well now I'm not taking that many photographs but I used to focus on them. Nature photography, like particularly macro photography, even birds as well. I made some articles and portraits for each post on my website, and in fact recently the National Geographic approached me for a photo that I took and posted on the board because biodiversity has taken this outside my. quarters that I'm staying in. If you submit back and it's a buyer river stitching its nest, then that's a beautiful photograph and they wanted to use it in one of the publications. one of their educational publications that's going to be printed soon. So in case I get fired from my job, I can still have something else to do, right?
Arun :
So sir, is there anything you would like to say? On a concluding note Anything appears to fail. I think what we are doing now is communicating science to the public and that is something I have found increasingly important for me through my evolution as a scientist. One has to communicate science to the public. Whatever research you do, you should not stop at publishing papers because we might get rewarded with publishing papers from our institution or something like that, but Population needs to study a starting point. You have put it out there. Then the task is to bring it out that we have the salient points of the research in a digestible way for the public to consume, and that is an important step for progress in science. I think another important aspect is. To have diversity in science. It can be in terms of gender, region or age, and simplistically speaking, we need more women and youngsters leading scientific research. India still looks up to hierarchy and bureaucracy based on seniority as in number of years, their personal wealth, or But we need to give more opportunities for youngsters and women from different regions that would not be able to so that they can come out and exercise their ideas. That will we have big huge perspectives that will be more innovations and otherwise we don't grow.
Shaun :
This was zeroing in with Doctor Roxy Mathew Kaul. We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to doctor Kaul for taking time out of his schedule and sharing his beautiful experiences and journeys with us in his field of oceanography and climate change research. Along with giving user Vikram for collaborating on this episode. on behalf of Zeroing IN team which includes Murala Aman Naveen, Shreya Mishra, Kirti Raj, Kanthan Narayan , Arun S and I'm Shaun
Zeroing IN is non profit initiative by the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology Alumni Association Thiruvananthapuram ,
Do write Your suggestions and feedback on Zeroing IN podcast on zeroingin@gmail.com or contact us on our Instagram or Facebook handles.