The present status and future of research of the East Asian monsoon

The weather and climate in China are greatly affected by the East Asian monsoon. For long time Chinese meteorologists have undertaken numerous works regarding research and prediction of the East Asian monsoon,and made great achievements that are well noted for the world and in China. In the future 5-10 years, the research on the East Asian monsoon will be strengthened and the obtained achievements will be gradually transferred into the operational capability, eventually leading to an improvement of weather and climate prediction in East Asia. The present paper has firstly made an overview of the present status of research on the East Asian monsoon, illustrating the 4- stage developmental process of monsoon study in China and major achievements thus obtained. Then the major problems related to the study of the East Asian monsoon is scientifically indicated, and the monsoon-related ongoing and future scientific field experiments and study projects the Chinese scientists have initiated or participated are briefly described. It may be expected that a new breakthrough in the problem of the East Asian monsoon in the future ten years will be made, with these efforts and intensive research works. Finally, it is pointed out that, to accomplish this new breakthrough, a key problem is to carry out the extensive cooperation, in particular the scientific cooperation of the scientist across the Taiwan Straits as well as countries over the surrounding regions.