India, Nov. 28 -- That the India Meteorological Department (IMD) is anything but reliable when it comes to predicting, whether or not it will, or how much it will rain today or tomorrow, is well known. Why this inaccuracy exists is something more perplexing. A recent paper by two environmental economists suggests that there is a non-material and material factor behind IMD's weather struggles: existing weather models find it hard to simulate tropical weather and the lack of comparable infrastructure with richer countries adds to this disadvantage.

A newer version of the working paper called 'Global inequalities in weather forecasts' by environmental economists Manuel Linsenmeier and Jeffrey Schrader was uploaded on the online repository S...