[1] We provide a new view of global and regional monsoonal rainfall, and their changes in the 21st century under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios as projected by 29 climate models that participated in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5. The model results show that the global monsoon area defined by the annual range in precipitation is projected to expand mainly over the central to eastern tropical Pacific, the southern Indian Ocean, and eastern Asia. The global monsoon precipitation intensity and the global monsoon total precipitation are also projected to increase. Indices of heavy precipitation are projected to increase much more than those for mean precipitation. Over the Asian monsoon domain, projected changes in extreme precipitation indices are larger than over other monsoon domains, indicating the strong sensitivity of Asian monsoon to global warming. Over the American and African monsoon regions, projected future changes in mean precipitation are rather modest, but those in precipitation extremes are large. Models project that monsoon retreat dates will delay, while onset dates will either advance or show no change, resulting in lengthening of the monsoon season. However, models' limited ability to reproduce the present monsoon climate and the large scatter among the model projections limit the confidence in the results. The projected increase of the global monsoon precipitation can be attributed to an increase of moisture convergence due to increased surface evaporation and water vapor in the air column although offset to a certain extent by the weakening of the monsoon circulation.

[1] Despite advances in seasonal climate forecasting using dynamical models, skill in predicting the Indian monsoon by such methods has proven poor. Our analysis identifies a flaw in the hitherto popular design of prediction systems in which atmospheric models are driven with a projected ocean surface temperature. Such a configuration presupposes Indian monsoon variability to be a consequence solely of the atmosphere reacting to the ocean. It is becoming increasingly evident that the Indian monsoon is suitably described as a fully coupled oceanland-atmospheric system, though implications for skill have not been demonstrated. We discover significant improvements in the skill of Indian monsoon predictions when atmospheric models are not constrained by specified observed SSTs in the Indian Ocean warm pool region. Evidence comes from intercomparing 50-years of monsoon skill in atmospheric models using specified SSTs with skill in coupled ocean atmosphere models. Citation: Krishna Kumar, K., M. Hoerling, and B. Rajagopalan (2005), Advancing dynamical prediction of Indian monsoon rainfall, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L08704,

a b s t r a c tWhile the collection of fish for the aquarium pet trade has been flagged as a major threat to wild populations, this link is tenuous for the unregulated wild collection of endemic species because of the lack of quantitative data. In this paper, we examine the extent and magnitude of collection and trade of endemic and threatened freshwater fishes from India for the pet markets, and discuss their conservation implications. Using data on aquarium fishes exported from India, we try to understand nature of the trade in terms of species composition, volume, exit points, and importing countries. Most trade in India is carried out under a generic label of ''live aquarium fish''; yet despite this fact, we extracted export data for at least thirty endemic species that are listed as threatened in the IUCN Red List. Of the 1.5 million individual threatened freshwater fish exported, the major share was contributed by three species; Botia striata (Endangered), Carinotetraodon travancoricus (Vulnerable) and the Red Lined Torpedo Barbs (a species complex primarily consisting of Puntius denisonii and Puntius chalakkudiensis, both 'Endangered'). Using the endangered Red Lined Torpedo Barbs as a case study, we demonstrate how existing local regulations on aquarium fish collections and trade are poorly enforced, and are of little conservation value. In spite of the fact that several threatened and conservation concern species are routinely exported, India has yet to frame national legislation on freshwater aquarium trade. Our analysis of the trade in wild caught freshwater fishes from two global biodiversity hotspots provides a first assessment of the trade in endangered and threatened species. We suggest that the unmanaged collections of these endemic species could be a much more severe threat to freshwater biodiversity than hitherto recognized, and present realistic options for management.