Joint ocean study partnerships in the Asia Pacific Ocean network

It is time that we need to review a couple of issues regarding the ocean-atmosphere-land interactions of relevance to variability and predictability of the Asia-Pacific regions. To assess the relative contributions of the slowly varying boundary conditions and the internal dynamics to the predictability of the monsoon. To determine the limits of predictability of the Asia-Pacific monsoon regime and to evaluate the impact of the monsoon on the predictability of the global climate system. To develop coordinated field studies, modelling and analysis programmes to address the mechanisms of the annual cycle in the coupled ocean atmosphere-land system in the regions, spatial and temporal variability of the monsoon system for intraseasonal, interannual and decadal time scales, fundamental roles and mechanisms in ENSO-monsoon coupling including biennial oscillation and interdecadal modulations, relative roles of ocean processes in different oceans of the region, and land surface processes in determining the variability, study of relative contributions of "chaotic" (local, internal atmosphere) versus deterministic (lower boundary conditions) processes in monsoon predictability, and tropical-extratropospheric interactions influence monsoon variations.