Tree-Ring Reconstructions of Asian Monsoon Climate Dynamics

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This award will enable a five-year project using the science of dendrochronology to examine the relationship between the Asian monsoon and the large-scale coupled processes that drive much of its variability. The researchers will examine these interactions on inter-annual to centennial time scales and anticipate that this project will yield information about how the monsoon system has varied over the past several centuries. Specifically, they will investigate the relationship of the Asian Monsoon to the large-scale coupled processes that drive much of its variability; namely air temperatures and sea surface temperatures (SST).The project is motivated by a series of research question such as: "How have the processes responsible for driving much of the observed Asian monsoon climate dynamics varied and interacted on inter-annual to centennial time scales?" and "How have Asian surface air temperatures, Indian Ocean SSTs, and Tropical Pacific SSTs covaried and interacted over the past several centuries?" The Asian monsoon climate system plays a significant role in large-scale climate variability over much of the globe. Due to its considerable importance to global climate and implications for the world's population, a greater understanding of this system, with the ultimate goal being improved prediction on annual to decadal and longer time scales is warranted.This research will help the science community understand climate variability in a densely populated region of the world. On the practical side, improved knowledge of climate variability could be used to improve long-term agricultural planning in the region by buffering agrarian societies against the effects of monsoon variability. The award will support post-doctoral, graduate, and undergraduate students at Columbia University and the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory and help build scientific capacity, infrastructure, and professional partnerships among Asian colleagues.