The climate of eastern Africa, Asia, and Indo Pacific regions is dominated by heavy rainfalls governed mainly by monsoons interacted with strong atmospheric convection accompanied by warm ocean currents in the Indo-Pacific. The monsoons have varied both in their intensity and volume over spatial and temporal scales, causing landscape evolution such as sub humid-humid regions becoming dry and arid for e.g. the Thar desert, extreme events such as floods, droughts, landslides, etc, and also deurbanization of civilizations such as Harappa, Mesopotamia, Sumerian, Mohenjo-Daro, etc. Monsoonal shifts have varied over time in several scales of decades, centuries, millennia, orbital and longer. This has impacted the hydrography of the region, human life, agricultural practices, and pastoral activities through time. Monsoonal variations have well impacted both the oceans (The China Sea, Indian ocean, Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal) and terrestrial regions. Asian monsoons are recognized as an important component of the global climate system and with global climate change largely looming over us it needs to be well understood for predicting future shifts in the future possible scenario of global warming. Despite recent progress in proper monitoring, understanding the processes and dynamics of the Asian monsoon there are still uncertainties and gaps that need to be filled in predicting future climate projections.
This can be achieved by applying the idiom ‘past and present are key to the future’; thus reconstructing past climate records that are held as signatures in corals, tree rings, paleosols (duricrusts, loess), lake and marine sediment cores, fluvial records, etc. can be used as proxies for paleoclimate reconstructions. Thus, past proxy records serve as an extension of our short instrumental climate records and can be implemented into climate models to predict future climate with a greater degree of accuracy. This will also provide a test of our understanding of the evolution of the monsoon system and of its sensitivity to global and local factors. It is important to project the changes of the Asian monsoon in future climate and this will help in evaluating any uncertainties so that appropriate mitigating actions can be taken
This research topic welcomes contributions on all paleo- and geological aspects of the Asian monsoon, its dynamics including its formation, processes, probable causes for its variability on various timescales (paleoreconstructions since Late Quaternary to present), its interaction with Indo-Pacific warm currents (e.g. the Kuroshio, Western Pacific Warm Pool), and future predictions using climate models.
The main aim in publishing this volume is to fill in gaps in our knowledge on the Asian monsoon and bring in the latest high-resolution instrumental observation data. All article types are welcomed, with a particular emphasis on Original Research, Reviews, and Perspectives. Manuscripts focusing on, but not restricted to,the following topics are particularly welcome:
• Asian paleomonsoon dynamics and its variability (centennial, millennial, orbital, and longer scales);
• Role of the paleomonsoon on hydrological cycles;
• Reconstructing the variations of paleomonsoons and Indo-Pacific warm currents using various proxies such as marine and lake sediments cores, fluvial, loess, corals, dendrochronology, speleothems etc;
• Application of past and present records for future prediction of monsoons and Indo-Pacific warm currents;
• Numerical modeling programs for Indo-Pacific monsoon predictions.
The climate of eastern Africa, Asia, and Indo Pacific regions is dominated by heavy rainfalls governed mainly by monsoons interacted with strong atmospheric convection accompanied by warm ocean currents in the Indo-Pacific. The monsoons have varied both in their intensity and volume over spatial and temporal scales, causing landscape evolution such as sub humid-humid regions becoming dry and arid for e.g. the Thar desert, extreme events such as floods, droughts, landslides, etc, and also deurbanization of civilizations such as Harappa, Mesopotamia, Sumerian, Mohenjo-Daro, etc. Monsoonal shifts have varied over time in several scales of decades, centuries, millennia, orbital and longer. This has impacted the hydrography of the region, human life, agricultural practices, and pastoral activities through time. Monsoonal variations have well impacted both the oceans (The China Sea, Indian ocean, Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal) and terrestrial regions. Asian monsoons are recognized as an important component of the global climate system and with global climate change largely looming over us it needs to be well understood for predicting future shifts in the future possible scenario of global warming. Despite recent progress in proper monitoring, understanding the processes and dynamics of the Asian monsoon there are still uncertainties and gaps that need to be filled in predicting future climate projections.
This can be achieved by applying the idiom ‘past and present are key to the future’; thus reconstructing past climate records that are held as signatures in corals, tree rings, paleosols (duricrusts, loess), lake and marine sediment cores, fluvial records, etc. can be used as proxies for paleoclimate reconstructions. Thus, past proxy records serve as an extension of our short instrumental climate records and can be implemented into climate models to predict future climate with a greater degree of accuracy. This will also provide a test of our understanding of the evolution of the monsoon system and of its sensitivity to global and local factors. It is important to project the changes of the Asian monsoon in future climate and this will help in evaluating any uncertainties so that appropriate mitigating actions can be taken
This research topic welcomes contributions on all paleo- and geological aspects of the Asian monsoon, its dynamics including its formation, processes, probable causes for its variability on various timescales (paleoreconstructions since Late Quaternary to present), its interaction with Indo-Pacific warm currents (e.g. the Kuroshio, Western Pacific Warm Pool), and future predictions using climate models.
The main aim in publishing this volume is to fill in gaps in our knowledge on the Asian monsoon and bring in the latest high-resolution instrumental observation data. All article types are welcomed, with a particular emphasis on Original Research, Reviews, and Perspectives. Manuscripts focusing on, but not restricted to,the following topics are particularly welcome:
• Asian paleomonsoon dynamics and its variability (centennial, millennial, orbital, and longer scales);
• Role of the paleomonsoon on hydrological cycles;
• Reconstructing the variations of paleomonsoons and Indo-Pacific warm currents using various proxies such as marine and lake sediments cores, fluvial, loess, corals, dendrochronology, speleothems etc;
• Application of past and present records for future prediction of monsoons and Indo-Pacific warm currents;
• Numerical modeling programs for Indo-Pacific monsoon predictions.
