History

Year of Establishment : 2002

History of the department : The pioneering Department of Atmospheric Sciences, erstwhile the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, was established in the year 2002 under the Institute of Environmental & Atmospheric Sciences, University of Calcutta, which till date is the sole Department offering four semester MSc. Course in Atmospheric Science in the eastern India. Prof. Sutapa Chaudhuri was given the charge of founder Coordinator of the Department in the year 2002 and continued till 2014. Prof. S. K. Midya took over charge as Coordinator in the year 2014.The Department has four core faculty positions and more than twenty post doctoral fellows/registered PhD students/ Project Fellows.
The first academic session of the M.Sc. Course in Atmospheric Sciences commenced from the year 2002. Initially the course was designed for two years M. Sc from the academic session 2002 to 2006. Later, from the academic session 2006 onwards the two years M.Sc. Course is converted to two years four semester course. Subsequently with fervour initiative of Prof. Sutapa Chaudhuri, the Centre of Excellence in Climate Sciences is established in the University of Calcutta in the year 2017. The Centre of excellence will act as the nodal research Centre for Climate Extremes: Climate Modelling

Guest Faculty
The inadequate number of core faculty to run the full fledged two years four semesters Masters Course as well as regular Doctoral Programme necessitated the involvement of guest faculties to support in the completion of the syllabus within schedule. The guest faculties acquainted with the subject are invited through Departmental Board with the approval of the Honble Vice Chancellor, University of Calcutta for teaching the students in the Department:

1. Departments of Chemistry, C. U.
2. Institute of Radio Physics & Electronics, C. U.
3. Department of Physics, C.U.
4. Department of Computer Science, C.U.
5. Department of Physics, JU
6. Regional Meteorological Office, Kolkata
7. Geological Survey of India, Kolkata.
8. State Remote Sensing Centre, Govt. of W.B.
9. NATMO, Kolkata
10. Central Pollution Control Board, Govt. of India
11. Indian Forest Service, Bikash Bhavan, Kolkata.
12. Interra Systems, Kolkata.
13. Research Scholars of the Department.

Courses

About the Course
The Department of Atmospheric Sciences was established with a view to developing manpower in Weather and Climate Sciences. Weather Data analytics, Exploration of different state of the art computational techniques including Numerical Weather Prediction for weather data analysis pertaining to develop forecast models for weather and climate systems, understand the physics and dynamics of weather extremes like severe thunderstorms, tropical cyclones, flood, earthquake, landslide, drought, , Monsoon System its variability, Oceanography, Geophysics, upper latitude phenomena, coupled Systems, Space science, Disaster Management & Mitigation etc are the aspects of interest.

Eligibility for the Course
The Honours Graduates in Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Statistics and Meteorology are eligible for the course. The candidates must have Physics & Mathematics either as Honours or as Pass subject. 55% marks in honours and 60% marks in 10+2 is required for obtaining the admission form. The selection list is prepared by adding the 50% marks of honours and 50% marks of the Aptitude test. Total Intake of students per academic session was initially 15 and now increased to 16

Course Catalogue [Click Here]

Student Facility
The Department has two comfortable Air Conditioned class rooms for the students to run two semesters simultaneously with the facilities of separate desks, smart board, Over Head Projectors and internet facilities. Computer Laboratory with Server, LAN and Internet facility for each student is available. Each student can work in a separate computer in each batch. The Registered PhD Fellows, Project Fellows and Post Doctoral Fellows have separate computers procured from different GOI supported Projects. Work Station is available for running state of the art numerical models.
Ten Automatic Weather Stations have been installed in ten locations around West Bengal under a DST supported project including one in the University Campus. Students collect and analyze the data for laboratory work. CAAQMS is also installed on the ground floor of the Horticulture building for laboratory work under MAPAN National Network Project.
The Departmental Library has about 2000 books on the subject. Students are provided three cards and are allowed to borrow two books at a time. The third card is for reading the books in the library. The students can borrow books with the same library card from the central library of the University. One well equipped Conference Hall is available for conferences, seminars, meetings, training etc. The students participate in weekly seminars.
The students are encouraged to attend training, seminars etc. in other organizations in India and Abroad as well for added exposures.

Contact

Campus : Taraknath Palit Sikshaprangan (Ballygunge Science College)

Address for communication : 51/2 Hazra Road, University of Calcutta, Kolkata-700019