Monsoon Onset Monitoring and its Social and Ecosystem Impacts (MOMSEI)
Launched in early 2009, this project aims to improve the understanding and forecasting of Asia monsoon and its multi-scale variability at a regional scale through developing and carrying out air-sea observations over the Andaman Sea and analyzing the preconditioning role of ocean in the monsoon onset. The project could generate considerable social impact in the region since Monsoon brings rainfall for the wider Southeast Asian Basin and its neighboring countries. It could also cause floods/droughts if the monsoon deviates from its normal pattern, thus finally resulting in the disruption of agricultural production, even displacement of inhabitants. Furthermore, this pilot project will also demonstrate the value of ocean observations for the ecosystem conservation by analyzing the possible link between the anomalous monsoon behavior and coral reef bleaching in the Andaman Sea.
The propose of the project were therefore to:
I. characterize monsoon climate and its variation,
II. characterize disasters aspects such as flooding and drought including coral bleaching due to increase of sea surface temperature which is one motive parameter to monsoon onset in the Bay of Bengal,
III. understand the critical processes of monsoon onset and its linkage. The project was started since early of 2009 with a series of workshops.
ยป Expert workshops