Recent research indicates that climate change has affected monsoon rainfall in India making it less frequent, but more intense. These departures are beginning to negatively impact kharif (monsoon season) crops, especially rice, it added. Heat stress and diseases, rampant due to a warmer and wetter Asian summer monsoon, are affecting rice and some other crops which are highly dependent on the monsoon. The findings are part of a recent study, 'Asian monsoon in a changing climate - Does it have an impact on kharif season agriculture?' discussed at the international conference held in Pune on opportunities and challenges in monsoon prediction in a changing climate in February. A group of scientists from the agricultural meteorology division of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Pune, and others working on the climate change aspect of agrometeorology were involved in the study.