About Us
The Atmospheric Research Testbed – Central India (ART-CI) is a premier observational facility established by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), located at Silkheda village in Sehore District, Madhya Pradesh. Positioned strategically in the heart of the monsoon core zone, ART-CI aims to address longstanding data gaps and improve understanding of monsoon convection, cloud microphysics, land-atmosphere interactions, and boundary layer processes that influence rainfall variability in Central India.
Given the strong correlation between rainfall variability over Central India and the all-India summer monsoon, ART-CI serves a critical role in enhancing large-scale predictability. The facility is equipped with an extensive suite of cutting-edge remote sensing and in-situ instruments—including dual-polarization C-band and Ka-band radars, wind profilers, radiometers, ceilometers, disdrometers, radiosondes, a 72-m meteorological tower, and advanced aerosol and radiation monitoring systems. These provide high-resolution, continuous observations across diurnal, synoptic, seasonal, and interannual timescales.
ART-CI plays a key role in validating and improving numerical weather prediction and climate models, particularly in addressing model biases such as the misrepresentation of diurnal convection and dry rainfall bias in Central India. The concurrent, co-located measurements enable generation of critical atmospheric profiles, hydrometeor classification, cloud structure, and vertical velocity fields necessary for process-level studies and parameterization improvement.
Functioning as both a long-term observatory and an open-science platform, ART-CI supports national and international research collaborations, intensive field campaigns, training programs, and model evaluation studies. The insights and datasets generated from ART-CI are expected to significantly contribute to advancing monsoon forecasting capabilities and climate resilience strategies for India.