A university professor’s monsoon research could help forecasters develop reliable, two-week weather predictions.

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Professor Amit Tandon’s study of monsoons over the Indian Ocean could improve scientists’ understanding of how the ocean and atmosphere affect each other. This, in turn, could aid a larger group of scientists to improve weather-predicting computer models.

“Globally, we can’t make reliable predictions more than 10 days ahead,” Tandon said in a press release. “Understanding the science of the monsoons is critical to generating the two-week weather predictions. As scientists and engineers, we have to keep trying our best to allow nature to open up her secrets to us.”

Tandon will lead scientists from the United States for the four-month research trip. They will work at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore. Tandon will also conduct training with early career Indian scientists at IISc and lead a specialized workshop on monsoons and curriculum development for advanced topics in ocean-atmosphere dynamics.

The research will be funded by a Fulbright-Nehru Scholarship.

Multiple international teams from the UK, France, and Australia are also working on improving long-term weather predictions by studying the Indian Ocean.