The south west monsoon, crucial to agriculture, is likely to be near normal this year, the Meteorological Department has forecast amid hopes that good summer rains would lead to an easing in the price situation. "India Meteorological Department's long-range forecast for the 2008 southwest monsoon season (June-September) is that rainfall for the country as a whole is likely to be near normal," earth sciences minister Kapil Sibal told reporters here. Quantitatively, monsoon season rainfall is likely to be 99 per cent of the long period average with a model error of five per cent. Facing inflationary pressures, the government is hoping for a normal monsoon that could trigger higher foodgrain production and ease food prices. This year's forecast utilises both the statistical and dynamic models to arrive at the estimates as the earlier method of relying on the statistical model alone had led to inaccurate predictions. "The statistical model works well only in northwest, central India, northern India and western India, while the dynamic model works well for peninsular India and the north-eastern part," Mr Sibal said. Last year weather scientists had forecast 95 per cent rainfall of the long period average using the statistical model, but the country received 105 per cent rainfall. The La Nina factor (the cooling of the equatorial Pacific Ocean) too is positive this year, an indication of better monsoon rains in the country, weather scientists said. "We believe that La Nina will be effective and peter down in the next three months," said Punebased National Climate Centre director Madhavan Rajeevan. The Met department has also taken into account the experimental forecasts prepared by national institutes such as the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune; Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad; Indian Institute of Science, National Aerospace Laboratories and Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation based in Bangalore and the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast, Noida. Operational and experimental forecasts prepared by international institutes like the National Centres for Environmental Protection, International Research Institute for Climate and Society, and Experimental Climate Prediction Centre (all based in the US) as also the UK's Meteorological Office and European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts. The issue of price rise was weighing heavily on Mr Sibal's mind as he referred at the start of the press meet to the ongoing debate on it in Parliament. IMD will update this forecast in June as a part of second-stage fore casts. Separate forecasts for July rainfall all over the country, crucial for Kharif crops, and seasonal rainfall over the four geographic regions of the country will also be issued in June. Meanwhile, although the GSI has reported a recession in the Gangotri glacier at a rate of 18.80 m/year during 1935-1996, there are no specific studies to assess the impact of climate change in that region of Uttarakhand, the Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday. Minister of state for environment and forests Namo Narain Meena said no specific study has been conducted to establish a link between climate change and environmental pollution with the glacial changes. The south- west monsoon, crucial to agricul- ture, is likely to be near normal this year, the Meteorological Department has forecast amid hopes that good summer rains would lead to an easing in the price situation. "India Meteorological Depart- ment's long-range forecast for the 2008 southwest monsoon season (June-September) is that rainfall for the country as a whole is likely to be near normal," earth sciences minister Kapil Sibal told reporters here. Quantitatively, monsoon sea- son rainfall is likely to be 99 per cent of the long period average with a model error of five per cent. Facing inflationary pressures, the government is hoping for a normal monsoon that could trigger higher foodgrain production and ease food prices. This year's forecast utilises both the statistical and dynamic models to arrive at the estimates as the earlier method of relying on the statistical model alone had led to inaccurate predic- tions. "The statistical model works well only in northwest, central India, northern India and western India, while the dynamic model works well for peninsular India and the north-eastern part," Mr Sibal said. Last year weather scientists had forecast 95 per cent rainfall of the long period average using the sta- tistical model, but the country received 105 per cent rainfall. The La Nina factor (the cooling of the equatorial Pacific Ocean) too is positive this year, an indica- tion of better monsoon rains in the country, weather scientists said. "We believe that La Nina will be effective and peter down in the next three months," said Pune- based National Climate Centre director Madhavan Rajeevan. The Met department has also taken into account the experimen- tal forecasts prepared by national institutes such as the Indian Insti- tute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune; Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad; Indian Institute of Science, National Aerospace Lab- oratories and Centre for Mathe- matical Modelling and Computer Simulation based in Bangalore and the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast, Noida. Operational and experimental forecasts prepared by international institutes like the National Centres for Environmental Protection, International Research Institute for Climate and Society, and Experi- mental Climate Prediction Centre (all based in the US) as also the UK's Meteorological Office and European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts. The issue of price rise was weighing heavily on Mr Sibal's mind as he referred at the start of the press meet to the ongoing debate on it in Parliament. IMD will update this forecast in June as a part of second-stage fore- casts. Separate forecasts for July rainfall all over the country, cru- cial for Kharif crops, and seasonal rainfall over the four geographic regions of the country will also be issued in June. Meanwhile, although the GSI has reported a recession in the Gan- gotri glacier at a rate of 18.80 m/year during 1935-1996, there are no specific studies to assess the impact of climate change in that region of Uttarakhand, the Lok Sabha was informed on Wednes- day. Minister of state for environ- ment and forests Namo Narain Meena said no specific study has been conducted to establish a link between climate change and envi- ronmental pollution with the glacial changes.