ISRO and French National Space Centre (CNES) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2004-05 for the development and implementation of Megha-Tropiques (Megha meaning cloud in Sanskrit and Tropiques meaning tropics in French).
The launch of Megha-Tropiques is planned by 2009-2010.Megha-Tropiques is aimed at understanding the life cycle of convective systems and to understand their role in the associated energy and moisture budget of the atmosphere in the tropical regions. The satellite will carry an Imaging Radiometer, a six channel Humidity Sounder and GPS Radio Occultation System.
The Megha-Tropiques mission resulted from the association of two major requirements for study of the tropical climate: ocean-atmosphere interactions and energy exchange with special emphasis on clouds and precipitation. The climate in tropical regions is known to be very sensitive to internal and external changes in the ocean-atmosphereland coupled system. The characteristics of these events are large intra-seasonal, interseasonal and inter-annual variations and may lead to catastrophic manifestations like floods, cycle of monsoon onset, active and decay phase, and impact of changes in cloud-radiative forcing due to anthropogenic effects, etc. The consequences of these processes is also known to impact the global climate systems as well since the regions provide much of the energy required for sustaining the system. The study will, therefore, require enhancement of the existing information by more intensive and simultaneous radiometric measurements for:• Atmospheric water cycle
• Corresponding radiation budget for cloud-radiative interaction properties
• High temporal sampling in order to characterize the life-cycle of convective systems
• All-weather capability to provide a sustainable data base for characterization of the processes in the atmosphere and ocean.
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