An assessment of “Micro-Weather Stations” Initiatives at Himalayan villages to monitor local weather variation and to assess the possible long-term climate change: Evaluating Impact on Livelihood

Abstract

Himalayan state like Uttarakhand is very sensitive and vulnerable to climate change. Many research data also
indicate the climate variation in Himalaya region and its adverse effect on its climate. The present study is
participatory evaluation of village micro weather station.
Micro- weather station is an initiative of Shramyog, Dehradun based organization. The station is basically a
forum where village children learn about weather by collecting temperature and rain-fall data. In addition, the
forum provides other tool to know their surrounding including biodiversity, night sky, weather prediction etc.In
the present study we evaluated micro-weather stations of three villages of block Salt in Almora district of
Uttarakhand for a period of one year from Jan 2016 to April 2017 and three months in the year 2017 at four
villages. These micro weather stations have been established at Govt. schools located in these villages with the
aid of a non-profit NGO ‘Shramyog’. The trained school children (so called “BalManch”) under the
mentorship of a teacher and a member of Shramyog record the daily weather measurements temperature
average. This report shows the variations of temperature for four months and the temperature variation is
compared with Haldwani temperature model and the temp variation is in similar manner. The comparison
shows remarkable similarity between observed temperature records and model climatologically.