Dr. Sivananda Pai

Dr. D. Sivananda Pai holds an M.Sc. in Physics from Mahatma Gandhi University, an M.Tech in Applied Optics from IIT Delhi, and a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from the University of Pune. He joined the Indian Meteorological Service in 1992 and has since served in various capacities in research, operational weather and climate services, and teaching. He was also the Director of the Institute of Climate Change Studies (ICCS), Government of Kerala, during 2022–23. At present, Dr. Pai is the Program Director at the Ministry of Earth Sciences and heads the Agrometeorological Advisory Division of IMD, New Delhi. He has made significant contributions to weather and climate services, including the development of operational forecasting models for seasonal rainfall, temperature, and monsoon onset, as well as high-resolution climate datasets for India. Dr. Pai served as a member of the WMO CBS Expert Team on Extended and Long-Range Forecasting, co-leader of the WMO Task Team on Regional Climate Outlook Forums (TT-RCOFs) from 2014-2016 and leader from 2017-2018, co-lead of the WMO Inter-Programme Expert Team on Regional Climate Activities (IPET-RCA) during 2018-2019, and since 2020 as co-lead of the working group on Basic Instructional Package for Climate Services (BIP-CS) under the WMO Expert Team on Capacity Development and Communication (ET-CDC).Since 2010, he has significantly contributed to preparing seasonal consensus forecast outlooks for the South Asia region under the South Asian Climate Outlook Forum (SASCOF).Dr. Pai has published extensively in national and international journals and has received several prestigious awards from IMD, the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the Indian Meteorological Society, and the World Meteorological Organization.