The IODP-PAGES Workshop on Global Monsoon in Long-term Records will be held from 7-9 September 2017 at Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
Venue
Lecture Hall, Yifu Building, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China.
Background
Over the past years, six IODP expeditions were devoted to monsoon (Figure 1). At the 2015 IODP Forum in Canberra, Australia, a proposal was adopted to organize a Global Monsoon workshop to integrate results of monsoon investigations with contributions of the IODP expeditions. The PAGES Working Group on Global Monsoon had just finished its ten-year activities. After several runs of discussions, it was decided to convene an IODP-PAGES Global Monsoon Workshop in Shanghai in 2017.
Scientific program
The workshop will review the research progress of the monsoon-related IODP as well as ODP expeditions, in order to compare the monsoon records between different regions and to explore the driving mechanisms of monsoon variabilities at tectonic, orbital and sub-orbital time scales.
Major questions to be addressed during the workshop include:
1. Applicability of the Global Monsoon concept at geological time scales: Are there coherent variabilities among regional monsoons?
2. Response of regional monsoons to external forcing and internal feedback: What are the major driving mechanisms of monsoon variability?
3. Initiation of the current monsoon systems: When did the modern regional monsoon systems establish? Where are the key areas to collect the crucial long-term records of monsoon evolutions and variability?
4. The use of monsoon proxies: Are there common proxies indicative of global monsoon?
5. The role of monsoon in global climate system: Which role does the monsoon system play in the global hydrological cycle on the geological timescale? How are monsoons related to other components in the climate system such as the westerlies and El Niño?
Topics
Major topics to be discussed at the workshop include:
- Global and regional aspects of monsoon systems: Regional monsoons differ from each other and have been studied so far in separation. To which extent the regional monsoons vary coherently and can be studied as a global system?
- Global monsoon and hydrological cycle: Monsoons are central to variations of the hydrological cycle in the low and middle latitudes. Closely associated with trade winds and the El Niño, is the global monsoon a key to understanding of the world hydrological cycle?
- Establishment of the modern regional monsoon systems: IODP expeditions have recovered long-term records of the regional monsoons. How much do we know about the history of monsoon systems, particularly the inception of the modern regional monsoons?
- Potential proxies of the global monsoon: Numerous proxies have been used in regional monsoon reconstructions, but which proxies have the potential to indicate global monsoon? Can we quantify the paleo-intensity of global monsoon?