This session provides the intellectual background for the rest of the meeting by summarizing the nature of land-ocean-atmospheric coupling that powers the modern monsoon. We aim to present the nature of and controls on modern precipitation and wind patterns and discussion how they might have differed in the geologic past, especially prior to the establishment of high topography.

In this session we focus on evidence for the evolving climatic conditions in the Asian continental interior, drawing on appropriate proxies from the marine cores as well as sedimentary records preserved in continental basins. This will include both reconstruction of vegetation, as well as changing intensities of continental weathering and aridity. Again, we focus on identifying the time of initial onset and times when monsoon intensity changes.

Here we examine whether there are links between the evolution of the monsoon, the history of erosion and the tectonic development of the mountains especially in South Asia in order to understand the degree of coupling and the potential for feedbacks.

This session will focus on well-dated records of evolving oceanic currents and biogenic productivity in relation to the intensity of the Asian monsoon winds. We especially want to constrain times of transition, strengthening, or weakening, as well as examining evidence for the initial onset.

This session will focus on reconstruction of changing rates and patterns of erosion in the mountainous source areas in South and Southeast Asia and potential relation with fan sedimentation to determine their response to the evolving climates in Cenozoic Asia.