Opportunities and challenges in monsoon prediction in a changing climate

Abstract

The South Asian monsoon is the pulse and life-line of over two billion inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent. The socio-economic development in this part of the world heavily depends on reliable predictions of the seasonal monsoon rainfall. Notwithstanding notable progress made in seasonal prediction of tropical climate during the past few decades, reliable forecasting of the South Asian summer monsoon has remained a ‘grand challenge’ problem. The problem gets more complicated in a warming environment with possible further degradation of the potential predictability. To define a way forward, an international Conference on “Opportunities and Challenges in Monsoon Prediction in a Changing Climate” (OCHAMP-2012) was organized during the period 21–25 February, 2012 at Pune, India, by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in association with World Climate Research Programme and World Weather Research Programme of World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The Conference was organized also to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology