This book presents a current review of the science of monsoon research and forecasting. The contents are based on the invited reviews presented at the World Meteorological Organization's Fourth International Workshop on Monsoons in late 2008, with subsequent manuscripts revised from 2009 to early 2010. The book builds on the concept that the monsoons in various parts of the globe can be viewed as components of an integrated global monsoon system, while emphasizing that significant region-specific characteristics are present in individual monsoon regions. The topics covered include all major...

This book focuses on two major challenges in the climate sciences: 1) to describe the decadal-to-centennial variations in instrumental and proxy records; and 2) to distinguish between anthropogenic variations and natural variability. The National Taiwan University invited some of the world's leading experts across the areas of observational analysis, mathematical theory, and modeling to discuss these two issues. The outcome of the meeting is the 23 chapters in this book that review the state of the art in theoretical, observational and modeling research on internal, unforced and externally...

This book aims to compile some of the important results from the latest research in climate variation and prediction studies with a focus on the role of the ocean, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region. Several new modes of ocean-atmosphere climate variations have been discovered in the last decade, and the advance of climate models have made it possible to predict some of these modes several seasons ahead. This has improved the society's ability to use model predictions to mitigate climate disaster risks. Leading experts in the field were invited to contribute to this book in order to...

The continued aridity trend occurring in many regions worldwide is a manifestation of the response of the earth system to global change. It hinders severely the sustainable development of these regions. Northern China is one of the largest and most affected regions in the world. This book documents the climatic change in its arid and semi-arid areas on decadal to geological time scales based on analyses of various data sources. These analyses improved our understanding of the potential mechanisms driving the aridity trend, particularly in the second half of the 20th century. Based on these...

This book is the third edition of a book series on the state of the science of monsoon research and forecasting. The series is updated approximately every five years based on the invited reviews of the World Meteorological Organization's International Workshop on Monsoons (IWM). The third edition is an outgrowth of the reviews initially presented in late 2013 at IWM-V, with manuscripts revised and updated through 2015 and early 2016. As in previous editions, the book builds on the concept that the monsoon in various parts of the globe can be viewed as components of an integrated global...