ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE LETTERS
Atmos. Sci. Let. 14: 52–53 (2013)
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/asl2.411
Meeting Report
RMetS conference workshop: monsoons and their
teleconnections
C. J. R. Williams* and A. G. Turner
NCAS-Climate, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Berkshire, RG6 6BB, UK
*Correspondence to: Keywords: RMetS conference; monsoons; climate modelling
C. J. R. Williams, NCAS-Climate,
Department of Meteorology,
University of Reading, Reading,
Berkshire RG6 6BB, UK.
E-mail:
c.j.r.williams@reading.ac.uk
Received: 29 August 2012
Accepted: 12 September 2012
Workshop report
Dr Charlie Williams and Dr Andy Turner (Andy
Turner was unfortunately unable to attend owing to
an invitation to speak at the IUGG General Assembly
in Melbourne.) from NCAS-Climate at the University
of Reading organized the Monsoons and their telecon-
nections workshop at the 2011 National Conference
of the Royal Meteorological Society. This followed
on from and focussed on some of the outcomes from
a workshop at the previous National Conference in
2009, entitled Tropical climate and rainfall variabil-
ity. The workshop consisted of four talks on a range
of issues in monsoon meteorology and modelling, fol-
lowed by an open discussion between invited speakers
and the audience.
The programme of talks was as follows:
• Jagadish Shukla – The ENSO-Monsoon Relation-
ship: So What Happened in 1997?
• Peter Webster – Remote monsoon influences on
remote weather and climate
• Gill Martin – Progress in simulating the Asian
summer monsoon and its variability
• Caroline Bain – CSRP (DFID-Met Office Hadley
Centre Climate Science Research Partnership;
see http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/csrp/.) –
Africa at the Met Office
The discussion began by positing various ideas for
consideration. Firstly, are there high-level questions
that motivate our interest in monsoon climates, other
than scientific curiosity? In other words: What are we
aiming for? What are the most interesting timescales
for study (seasonal, intraseasonal, interannual, and
decadal) and more importantly what are the timescales
most useful for society, if we could model and pre-
dict them? The audience was then led towards think-
ing about the interface with the impacts community
by asking whether our current predictions are good
enough for society and, if so, then how our forecasts
and products can be better applied.
Next, the audience were prompted to think about
issues of a more technical nature. These science ques-
tions first encompassed model evaluation and devel-
opment. Model evaluation against other models and
observations was stressed as an important way to
understand their behaviour; the increasing availabil-
ity of new products in the monsoon regions, which
have hitherto suffered from a paucity of observations,
will help this goal. A new range of tests are being
carried out to evaluate models at different timescales,
such as their skill at intraseasonal prediction of the
monsoons. Areas of interesting new opportunities for
research into monsoon meteorology were highlighted,
encompassing convection, dynamics, teleconnections,
and interactions between aerosols, land surface and
monsoon climate. Perhaps one of the key modelling
problems for the Asian monsoon region in particu-
lar is the representation of the flow and convection
over steep orography – especially important as reso-
lution increases. This raises doubts over whether the
available observations are sufficient to test high reso-
lution model simulations. While regional models are
suggested as appropriate tools for modelling at the
highest resolutions, the interconnected nature of the
processes involved suggests that a rather larger domain
than that available in most regional models is neces-
sary. The competition between successfully modelling
climatology versus predictability was raised, but we
are still challenged to determine how the two inter-
act. Finally, studies of land–atmosphere interactions
Copyright  2013 Royal Meteorological Society
Monsoons and their teleconnections
have raised hopes that we can better understand mon-
soon rainfall variability on long and short timescales:
emerging evidence in India suggests land-use change
may play a role in long-term trends in rainfall; interac-
tions with the land surface over Africa could also help
with accurate simulation of intraseasonal variability.
The open discussion first chose to focus on the
technical questions relating to model evaluation and
development. Prof. Jagadish Shukla led the discussion,
stressing the need to have a clear strategy of future
model development, which should aim not only to pri-
oritize monsoon climatology but also to have a clear
focus on seasonal and diurnal cycles. Attaining bet-
ter simulations of diurnal and seasonal cycles should
then also lead to improvements in variance of monsoon
convection on a wide range of timescales. While Prof.
Shukla suggested that we should aim to have as perfect
a representation of the atmosphere as possible, cau-
tion was raised over whether such a goal could really
be achieved by increasing model resolution alone.
Dr Steve Woolnough highlighted several points neces-
sitating vigilance in our use of models for tropi-
cal convection. We must beware of compensation of
errors, or more colloquially, ‘being right for the wrong
reasons’. The priority should be to improve model
representations of the physical processes involved in
meteorology of the monsoon regions and not on the
mean climate itself: hopefully, this better understand-
ing of processes will improve the mean climate in
turn. Prof. Mat Collins raised the suggestion that sim-
pler models were perhaps under-utilized in monsoon
Copyright  2013 Royal Meteorological Society
53
research. Intermediate complexity models have previ-
ously been used to target ENSO processes, with bene-
fits to global models in consequence. Dr Caroline Bain
summarized by suggesting that the best way forward
seems to be forming a balance between improving pro-
cess understanding and representation while keeping a
keen eye on simulation of the mean climate, to ensure
we do not act to its detriment.
Next, Prof. Peter Webster took the lead in address-
ing the needs of the impacts community and the inter-
face between monsoon climate science and the end
user. He stressed it was important to consult the needs
of the end user. The climate products that end users
can utilize and understand were discussed, with the
feeling that as a community we should be working
towards producing probabilistic products. Dr Bain sug-
gested that we should maintain awareness of the areas
in which we have skill, and whether we can exploit
this for new products. Prof. Webster closed by cau-
tioning that we must be absolutely honest about how
much skill we have and the inherent limitations in our
modelling. The relevant stakeholders must be aware
of where the models currently stand and what is fea-
sible and achievable. He suggested that we need to
start using the phrase predictive understanding of the
climate system.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Caroline Bain for taking notes during
the workshop.
Atmos. Sci. Let. 14: 52–53 (2013)