Influence and Variability of the Asian summer monsoon, a project sponsored by the European Commission. The project goals are:

to improve the simulation of the mean evolution of the monsoon, including its intraseasonal characteristics;

to assess the ability of models to simulate the intraseasonal characteristics, particularly active/ break phases, monsoon depressions, and sensitiivty of the simulations to horizontal resolution;

to investigate the mechanisms involved in the intraseasonal variability through coordinated sensitivity experiments, i.e. to study the roles of land surface processes, atmosphere–ocean interactions over the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, and internal dynamics; and

to investigate the relationship between intraseasonal and interannual variability.