Instrumental, Terrestrial and Marine Records of the Climate of South Asia during the Holocene:

Abstract

In South Asia, monsoon is almost a synonym to climate and constitutes a critical resource for the region’s largely agrarian economies. Region’ water needs are largely dependenton summer monsoon rainfall. In some regions however, of the total water budget, glacier melt water can measure up to ~10-15% the rest being the rainfall. The past century has seen a marked expansion of global/regional observational networks for accumulatuion of data on climate state parameters.However, so far, these have found only a limited use in policy planning in the socio-economic sector and for strategies toward sustainable development, particularly in the context of anticipated global warming. A critical synthesis Of all the climatic information is prerequisite for a scientifically sound policy planning. Consequently, a retginal scale description of the present state of our understanding of climate state parameters and an estimation of the likely amplitude of their variability are crucial for this purpose.