Student study: Future climate warming could lead to 15 day delay in monsoon onset in Southeast Asia

Yen Yi Loo investigated how global and regional temperature and rainfall anomalies affect rainfall patterns and the South East Asian Monsoon. She also highlighted how increased rainfall intensity in the last decade has caused major floods in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines with implications for regional food security.

The review paper entitled; "Effect of climate change on seasonal monsoon in Asia and its impact on the variability of monsoon rainfall in Southeast Asia"; arose from work Yen Yi conducted for her first year module "Dissertation in Environmental Science" under the supervision of Dr Lawal Billa in the School of Geography and Dr Ajit Singh in the Schoolof Biosciences.

Explaining some of the challenges she encountered in writing this paper Yen Yi, who is now in the second year of her BSc in Environmental Science at UNMC, said: "I enjoyed doing the research very much, but at that stage our modules had yet to cover the relevant material, so it was a challenge to get up to speed with the new topic. Now that we are studying these topics in more depth in second year, it is good to see the research area in the context of the modules I am taking. Whilst writing the paper was hard work, I found the critical review process the most challenging. Nonetheless, the hard work really pays off in the end."

When he became aware that the journal was compiling a special issue on Natural Hazards Yen Yi's dissertation supervisor Dr Lawal Billa suggested that Yen Yi submit her research for publication.