Prof. Sanjay Kumar Mehta

  • Research Professor
  • 6379010941
  • sanjaykr@srmist.edu.in

Prof. Sanjay Kumar Mehta

Prof. Sanjay Kumar Mehta started his research work as a Junior and Senior research fellow at the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL), Department of Space, Govt of India. His PhD degree is awarded from Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi. He has postdoctoral experience as a Mission Research Fellow and JSPS Fellow from Kyoto University Japan. Prof. Mehta has produced several interesting research on the tropopause structure and dynamics during his PhD and Postdoctoral tenure. After joining SRMIST, Prof. Mehta worked on the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL), Aerosol-cloud interactions, and upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (tropical tropopause layer (TTL), cirrus clouds, Asian Summer Monsoon Anticyclone (ASMA)) projects funded by ANRF, MoES and SPARC. He has brought and been involved in several national and international projects/collaborations that support the continuous monitoring of ABL, Aerosols, and clouds using a few state-of-the-art facilities such as MPL, Radiosonde, Aeronet, Skyimager, AWS etc. He has supervised eight PhD students, mostly got employment in Govt. Institutions. He has published more than 40 publications in peer-reviewed journals and 22 technical reports of international repute. Prof. Mehta is serving as a life member of several professional bodies, served as the guest editor of the Frontier in Remote Sensing, and has organized international conferences (ASMA2020, ASMA2023), national workshop (NoBLExClim), colloquium (DPRC 2021), and International meeting (PROBA3-SWT) as a convener to promote the activities in atmospheric sciences. Shortly, Prof. Mehta is planning a national-level campaign to monitor tracers for radiation budget calculation and welcomes talented and motivated students to join his group.

CAMPUS: Department of Physics and Nanotechnology, Faculty of Engineering & Technology, Kattankulathur - Chennai
EXPERIENCE : Research Experience = 20 years , Teaching Experience =11 years of experience
RESEARCH INTEREST :

My main scientific activities are related to (i) Boundary layer exchange processes, (ii) Cloud-aerosol infractions, and (i) Upper tropospheric processes (e.g., Asian Summer monsoon Anticyclone, tropical tropopause layer, cirrus clouds)  which are explored utilizing both space-borne and ground-based techniques as well as weather and climate forecast modelling.

My research has provided development and further understanding of the tropical tropopause structure and dynamics over the Indian monsoon region. I have developed a few new methods to quantify the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) using vertical wind observations, tropical tropopause height using bending angle information from GPS Radio Occultation, and multiple tropopauses over the tropics. I also quantified signature of minor volcanoes in the thermal structure of the TTL, identified cirrus cloud layer and established its diurnal structure, developed method to identify the extreme variability of the tropical tropopause, delineated the troposphere-stratosphere exchange processes by examining the occurrence of the cirrus top above the tropopause, established relationship between tropical easterly jet and tropical tropopause, and develop method to identify the Asian summer monsoon anticyclone. Established seasonal pattern of the diurnal structure of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) over the coastal station, calculated the fetch for the thermal internal boundary layer development, developed sea breeze membership function for ABL height identification using fuzzy logic method, characterize the thermodynamic structure of the ABL for different sky condition, studied the role of monsoon on the ABL variation. Carried validation work for CALIOP products, characterized seasonal structure of the tropospheric aerosols, identified elevated aerosols layer using differential zero crossing method, and more recently studied aerosols redistribution with varying intensities of the tropical cyclones.

Besides research, teaching, training, and mentoring to Masters and Doctoral students in the University/Institute, I am also actively engaged in knowledge networking by organizing and attending workshops/conferences, etc.

COURSES :

Atmospheric Physics

Atmospheric Measurement

Synoptic Meteorology

Cloud Physics

Middle Atmosphere

Climate change

Statistical Methods in Atmospheric Sciences

Mathematical Physics

Computational Methods and Programming

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