LAUSR

The Asian monsoon is of enormous importance to landward moisture transportation in the global hydrological cycle. Precipitation is a key element in global water and energy cycle and a major driver of atmospheric general circulation. Impacts of monsoon climate change on water and energy are expected to be severe in Asia. There is no doubt that changes in monsoon precipitation will impose considerable impacts on society and economy (Qiu, 2013). Therefore, a number of research groups have attempted to seek a more fundamental understanding of climate change in the Asian monsoon regions through observational studies and modelling work (Wang, 2006; Chang et al., 2017). The objective and aim of this issue are to understand how monsoon has changed and will change in the course of global climate change contributed by natural variability, natural forcing and anthropogenic forcing (Kim and Ha, 2015). Figure 1 shows one of the examples for recent changes in the Asian monsoon system addressed in Lee et al. (2017) of this special issue. There was a significant interdecadal shift in mean and extreme of summer monsoon rainfall over Asia occurred around the mid-1990s suggesting that the change in regional sub-monsoon system should be understood in the context of the Asian monsoon change.