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No 30
Rerpot of a Workshop by Dr. Masami Nonaka
I attended a International Workshop on Ocean Circulation and Climate
at the Ocean University of China in Qingdao, from July 19 to 22, 2006.
Because it was held just before a big international meeting in Beijing,
nearly half of the participants were from foreign countries, while about
half of them were Chinese scientists working out of China. |
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| In recent years, some of such Chinese scientists came back to
China and had started to lead researches, and this workshop was also called by such
a scientist, Prof. Lixin Wu. The session was started from invited talks by several
famous scientists and wide topics on atmospheric, oceanic, and air-sea-interface processes
in tropics and midlatitudes were discussed. In the sessions, it was found very active
researches were going on each of those topics in China.After the sessions from 8 AM to 6 PM,
we went out to the downtown to have the famous Qingdao Beer, and there, I could feel that the
Chinese economy is really developing. Maybe due to the developing economy, it was said that
the budget for Chinese ocean science researches has doubled in these five years, and I expected
it would make Chinese oceanic researches much more active. |
No 29
Report of the
meeting by Dr. Hitoshi Tamura
I attended the Ocean Science Meeting held at Hawaii, USA, from
20 to 24 February, 2006. About 3500 people from all over the
world attended this meeting to present and discuss their latest
studies focusing on ocean sciences. From our program, eight
researchers attended.
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| Recently, it is noted that ocean
current-wave interaction is one of important factors for occurrence
of "freak wave". However, because of lack of high-resolution
data for ocean current (s), this interaction almost has not
been considered for prediction research for ocean wave. In this
meeting, we made our presentations on studies for development
of a high-resolution wave model we can consider actual ocean
current effect and our estimation of expectation of occurrence
of the "freak wave". We focused on one case that a super big
and windy typhoon passed around Japan in late October 2004,
and calculated wave height without and with ocean current produced
by JCOPE high-resolution model, respectively. Large increase
of the wave height in the East China Sea and just over the Kuroshio
current southward of Japan and significant differences of the
wave height (maximum is about 80 cm) in the east coast of Taiwan
were confirmed associated with changes of surface wind and direction
of the Kuroshio associated with the typhoon passing. |
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No 28
Introduction of Hitoshi Tamura, who joined our Program in August 2005.
I joined the climate variations research program in August 2005. I have studied on the physical environment of coral reef areas inTokyo Institute of Technology. One of major research activities was to observe the environment of the Nansei Islands such as Okinawa, Kerama, Miyako, and Ishigaki Islands and to realize the present condition of the coastalenvironment. |
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In fact Ishigaki Island is faced with the serious environmental problems due to theairport construction and the red-soil deposition. The other was, based on the field observations, to evaluate the current and thermal environment in coral reefs using a numerical model specializedfor very shallow ocean with only about 5m depths. In the FRCGC, I would like to develop a newocean current and wave forecast system based on the JCOPE model and investigate its applicabilityto societies. |
No 27
On 26th November 2004, SINTEX-F1 workshop was held at the Hakone Prince
Hotel. The aims of this workshop were to discuss intensively further
improvement of physical performance and optimization on the Earth
Simulator of the SINTEX-F1 model developed as a part of the research
collaboration with EU-JAPAN, among researchers involving in the projects.
In the workshop, the Program Director Dr. Yamagata, one of the main
organizers of the workshop, introduced the key role of SINTEX-F model
for introducing importance of Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) in the world.
He also discussed some basic ongoing researches for future predictability
experiments. IOD is considered basically as an atmosphere-ocean interaction
phenomenon in the tropics like as El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
However, it turned out that its prediction is relatively difficult
compared to that of ENSO because of crucial differences between the
Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean such as geographical conditions,
which activate scale interactions over the Indian Ocean. Dr. Navarra
of Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), the representative
of the SINTEX project in the EU side, had an overall review of research
activities about prediction methods. Then, other participants reported
recent research outputs such as a seasonal forecast, the Indian monsoon,
as well as progress in development and improvement of the models.
Finally, it was confirmed with EU side to make active contribution
for the Indian Ocean modeling project by promoting joint development
and improvement of physical and computational performance of SINTEX
model.
No 26
Report of the conference by Dr. Honda
I attended the Bjerknes Centenary 2004 "Climate Change
in High Latitudes" held at Bergen, Norway from 1 to 3,
September, 2004. About 300 people, mostly from Europe, attended
this conference to present and discuss their latest high-latitude
climate studies focusing on the North Atlantic. The main themes
of this conference were vertical circulation, carbon circulation,
and climate changes in the North Atlantic; and reproduction
of palaeoclimate by using high-resolution models, the main research
projects of Bjerknes Center for Climate Research, the host of
this conference. Many participants made presentations on their
own research projects, which was conducted mainly in poster
session style. The Center was so overcrowded since number of
participants registered for this conference was more than expected.
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| Through this conference, keen discussions
were exchanged. Many FRCGC researchers attended the conference,
including Drs. Honda (author) and Takaya from our program.
Honda and Takaya made their presentations on studies on
climate changes in mid-latitudes regions such as the North
Pacific and the Eurasia respectively, while most other
presentations were about the climate changes in the North
Atlantic regions. In the academic tour of a glacier observation,
the participants had detailed explanations about mechanisms
of glacier fluctuation, and relationship between the fluctuation
and recent global warming, etc. Looking at the decreasing
glacier, I could get a real feeling of global warming
effect. |
Tour participants heading for the
glacier as if they were pulled in. (photograph by Dr.
Yoshihiro Tachibana, IORGC)
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No 25
On October 30-31st, 2003, a workshop titled "Tropospheric
Low-frequency Variability and Abnormal Weather" (Principal implementor:
Associate Professor Hitoshi Mukougawa), organized by Disaster Prevention
Research Institute, was held at the Wood Composite Hall on the Uji
Campus of Kyoto University. It was pointed out that the recent abnormal
weather conditions in the world are somewhat different from those
previous, both in frequency and intensity. Furthermore, it is increasingly
recognized that the circulations in the troposphere are changing drastically
by global warming. This workshop was aimed at gaining an understanding
of the actual conditions of such abnormal weather and elucidating
the mechanism of long-term variations in the troposphere, which are
one of the causes of abnormal weather. Numerous research papers were
presented by our program and others groups of Frontier Research Center for Global Change. Group Leader Hisashi Nakamura, Researchers Meiji
Honda, Shozo Yamane and Koutarou Takaya from this group participated
in the workshop and presented research papers on the formation process
of high pressure over the Sea of Okhotsk, the Aleutian Low, and intraseasonal
variations in the Siberian High. Various issues on climate change
were actively discussed among the researchers from all over the country.
In the workshop, the abnormal weather recorded in the summer of 2003
was also discussed.
No 24
We are happy to introduce Dr. Haruo Terasaka, who has joined our program
in this October.
I have been temporally transferred from the Toshiba Corporation since
this October. I majored in mechanical engineering. After joining the
Toshiba, I studied mainly on thermal-hydraulic phenomena and numerical
analysis methods in the field of nuclear engineering and environment.
I was involved in research and development on boiling water reactors,
fast-breeder reactors, drinking water treatment plants and so on.
For last three years, I had been studying large-scale computational
fluid dynamics and its visualization at Institute of Fluid Science,
Tohoku University. At the FRCGC, I would like to try working on the
advancement of Japan Coastal Ocean Predictability Experiment (JCOPE),
which is one of the main research themes of the Climate Variations
Research Program. As I mentioned, my background is engineering and
it is a first time for me to conduct a research in the field of science.
So, everything happening here is new to me. There are many things
I admire, astonished, and also feel somewhat different. By remembering
this fresh feeling, I should like to make my contribution to the FRCGC's
activities.
No 23
We are pleased to introduce Dr. Mototaka Nakamura, who joined our Program in this May.
 After 18 years in the United States, I'm back for a while in Japan to focus on science. It feels just like another phase of my journey over the past 10 years. Since graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) eight years ago, I have worked in several institutions in the United States, including the Goddard Space Flight Center, MIT, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in addition to spending a two-year break living as a professional musician. Aside from my passion for fly fishing and music, I have devoted signifcant time to the study of climate dynamics from the perspective of treating the atmosphere, oceans, and ice as an inseparable system. I have participated in research on various topics, including the dynamic characteristics of the North Atlantic Ocean and the parameterization of mixing by small-scale quasi-horizontal motions in the oceans. During my stay at FRCGC, I hope to contribute to the development of a super-high-resolution-coupled simulation model of the atmosphere, oceans, and ice that represents most of the important climatic processes with reasonable accuracy. I also hope to address the issue of middle latitude atmospheric responses to middle latitude sea surface temperature anomalies in a more meaningful way, and hopefully demonstrate the mechanism of the North Atlantic Oscillation.
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No22
Two visiting researchers are staying with us. Prof. Bhaskar Rao, a director of meteorology and oceanography at Andra University, India is staying in our program since September for six months. He is a leading expert on various fields such as cumulus cloud parametarization, simulation of tropical cyclone, and Asian Monsoon. As an expert on numerical modeling, in order to elucidate the climate prediction, he has built and improved various numerical models. In addition to the improvement of atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM), which he dedicated during his last year's stay with us, he is currently making continuous contribution for the development of regional climate models. Dr. Hendrikus Wicher Ter Maat, who has been staying with us for three months since December, is more than 2 meters height, of course the tallest researcher ever in our program. He has been conducting his research on building and developing the regional models in Africa, Brazil, and Europe in Alterra Institute, Wageningen University in Holland. In our program, he has committed to the development of connecting points for the regional models and global models for the regional prediction and its application for climate models in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, which are affected by oceanic climate variations. Both of them will be staying us till the cherry blossom season, and we foresee the great contribution from the two.
No 21
Dr. K. Takaya received the Yamamoto-Syouno Award from Meteorological
Society of Japan in 2002 for a paper entitled "A Formulation of
a Phase-Independent Wave-Activity Flux for Stationary and Migratory
Quasigeostrophic Eddies on a Zonally Varying Basic Flow". "Wave-activity"
fluxes proposed in previous studies have not been able to correctly
represent snapshot features of threedimensional Rossby wavepacket
propagation embedded on a zonallyasymmetric basic flow, which could
have strongly affected weather conditions. In the paper, he defined
a new "wave-activity" to formulate a new wave-activity flux, which
can depict such snapshot propagation. This formulation will greatly
contribute to the theoretical extensions of geostrophical fluid
dynamics. Moreover, this new flux has been a useful diagnostic tool
to analyze observed and numerical data in the mid-latitude atmosphere.
Actually, the flux has been used for monthly report on climate system
of Japan Meteorological Agency for more than three years and its
usefulness has been highly appreciated.
No 20
Dr. Swadhin Behera from our group attended the recent Pacific Ocean
Remote Sensing Conference (PORSEC) 2002 held in Bali, Indonesia.
There were about 150 presentations from equal number of foreign
and local participants.
Several new aspects of the ocean remote sensing were discussed during
the conference. This includes advancement in the satellite remote
sensing of sea surface salinity and under water remote sensing for
rainfall. Dr. Behera presented a co-authored paper by Program Director
Prof. Toshio Yamagata and other colleagues in the group. The paper
clarified some misleading aspects about the Indian Ocean Dipole
raised recently in the climate research community and was applauded
by many participants.
Local researchers paid a lot of attention to the presentation as
the effect of the phenomenon is most pronounced in the region. It
is thought that the advent of new satellite data will be very useful
for the prediction of the Indian Ocean Dipole events.
No 19
Earth Simulator, the fastest supercomputer in the world, is finally
operational since April, 2002. With this computer, active collaborative
research has been conducted between the Earth Simulator Center and
the Frontier Research Center for Global Change.
In Climate Variations Research Program, two researchers, Drs. Yamane
and Kagimoto have been playing the leading role of this joint research.
Dr. Yamane is carrying out a detailed calculation of the meso-scale
phenomena such as tropical storm and Baiu-front at global scale,
using a super high resolution atmospheric general circulation model
with triangular truncations of T639 and T1279 (which correspond
to 20km and 10km horizontal resolution, respectively). This model
is called AFES and is based on CCSR/NIES model.
Meanwhile, Dr. Kagimoto is simulating the realistic ocean circulation
system with the super high-resolution (approximately 10km horizontal
resolution) ocean general circulation model based on the Princeton
Ocean Model, which is called PFES. The research will excite us soon
by providing microscopic view of Earth climate system.
No 18
The founder of IOD (Indian Ocean Dipole), Dr. Saji Hameed has transferred
to International Pacific Research Center from our Program in February.
We should like to introduce Dr. Saji's past and current research
activity.
I joined IGCR in Feb, 1998. My most important work was in describing
the nature of the Indian Ocean Dipole Mode phenomenon. Along with
Prof. Toshio Yamagata and other colleagues I described the spatial
structure and the evolution of the IOD for the first time. We showed
that a dipole like SST anomaly patterns evolves hand in hand with
changes of easterly winds near the equatorial Indian Ocean. Subsequently
this leads to the westward shift of a large zone of convection in
the southeast equatorial Indian Ocean thereby bringing droughts
over Sumatra and floods over East Africa. In a recent study along
with Prof.
Yamagata I showed that the IOD also affects the Walker and Hadley
circulations over the Indian Ocean. We showed that these changes
in the atmospheric circulation can lead to teleconnection patterns
which can affect climate in regions remote from the Indian Ocean.
An example of such a teleconnection effect is the tendency for IOD
to create warmer than normal summers over Japan and warmer than
normal springs over South America.
Currently I am exploring the atmospheric mechanisms that can create
these teleconnection patterns.
No 17
Once in every two years, Oceanographers world wide gather for assemblies
of either International Association for the Physical Sciences of
the Oceans (IAPSO) or International Association for Biological Oceanography
(IABO). This year for the first time, it was held jointly, in Mar
del Plata, Argentina, from 21st to 26th October. From our group,
two researchers, Dr. Suryachandra A. Rao and Dr. Jing Jia Luo attended
this meeting. They presented the results on the burning topics of
the Indo-Pacific ocean climate variability; Sea Surface Temperature
(SST) response in the Bay of Bengal during a Indian Ocean Dipole
Event (IOD) and long term El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variation
with special emphasis on the south Pacific, respectively.
Both the talks attracted the attention of eminent scientists in
the field of climate variability in the Indo-Pacific region. IOD,
being the recently discovered phenomenon, is widely accepted as
a coupled ocean-atmospheric phenomenon in this assembly. There were
six talks on the IOD and its relation to various ocean - atmospheric
dynamics. These talks debated on its association with the ENSO.
There were other sessions with wide spectrum of disciplines in the
marine environment, that were very interesting.
No 16
Since August, three researchers, including two overseas guest researchers
have joined the program. One of the guest researchers is Dr. Bhaskar
Rao, a professor from Andhra University in India. As a foremost
researcher in areas such as cumulus parameterization and radiation
schemes, he has built a numerical model for clarifying climate variation.
In our program, Dr. Rao will be involved in a project to improve
the modular atmospheric general circulation model (FrAM).
Our new young genius member, Dr. Sebastien Masson, just graduated
from University of Paris is a coupled atmosphere-ocean modeler with
a bright future in international sphere. He has clarified the role
of fresh water flux in the large-scale atmosphere-ocean interaction
of the Tropical Indian Ocean. He chose our research pro-gram for
his post-doctorate because of the world leading research on the
dipole mode event (DME). He is eager to pro-mote joint research
between the FRCGC and the European Union, using the EU's coupled
atmosphere-ocean general circulation model.
Dr. Guan Zhaoyong, previously achieved great results at this research
program as an STA fellow, before advancing to the position of full-time
professor at Nanjing Institute of Meteorology, has finally returned
as a full-time researcher. He intends to elucidate teleconnections
and other phenomena with the atmosphere-ocean general circulation
model, utilizing the previous data analysis studies of the Arctic
Oscillation and Antarctic Oscillation.
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