The Asian Monsoon

The Asian monsoon is one of the most important components of the global climate system. It dominates large densely-populated areas extending from the Indian sub-continent eastwards to Southeast and East Asia. Its evolution and variability can exert significant influences on the vegetation, populations, economies, and even cultures that inhabit Asian monsoon regions. Concurrently, the monsoon-related natural hazards such as flooding, droughts, heatwaves, and blizzards are having an increasing impact on society and human livelihood. Therefore, it is essential to make skillful forecasts and predictions and reasonable future projections of the Asian monsoon.

The Asian monsoon varies from synoptic to decadal and longer time scales. It interacts with the Earth’s ocean, land, atmosphere, and even the biosphere via complex coupled processes, including the effect of the anthropogenic aerosols. It is essential to understand these processes as well as the physical principles of Asian monsoon variations, and to know how and why the current state-of-the-art climate models capture these features before making forecasts and predictions. This issue becomes increasingly crucial in light of global climate change. It is also essential to project the changes of the Asian monsoon in the future climate and to evaluate any uncertainties so that appropriate actions can be made and adapted. In this process, the respective role of the internal climate variability versus external forcing needs to be assessed carefully in the near- and long-term changes of the Asian monsoon.

This Research Topic welcomes contributions on all aspects of the Asian summer and winter monsoon, including its formation, variability on various timescales, and future projections. The main goal is to offer an opportunity to summarize the recent advances and the remaining gaps in our knowledge on the Asian monsoon. All article types are welcome, with a particular emphasis on Original Research, Reviews, and Perspectives. Manuscripts focusing on, but not limited to the following topics are particularly welcome:

• Observational facts and diagnosis of the Asian monsoon variability;
• Role of the Asian monsoon on the global energy and hydrological cycle;
• Extreme weather and climate extremes of the Asian monsoon;
• Dynamics and thermodynamics of Asian monsoon variability;
• Interactions of the Asian monsoon with geospheres and biospheres;
• Interactions of the Asian monsoon with aerosols and environment;
• Numerical modeling of the Asian monsoon;
• Theory on the formation and variability of the Asian monsoon;
• Prediction and predictability of the Asian monsoon;
• Projection of the Asian monsoon and its uncertainties.

Keywords: monsoon, extreme, prediction, projection, climate change, aerosol, environment, air-sea interaction, land-air interaction, model

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.