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.

In the 5th International GAME (GEWEX Asia Monsoon Experiment) Conference, held in Nagoya, Japan, in early October, nine researchers including Program Director Dr. Yasunari, Drs. Takata, Suzuki, Endo, Tanaka, Kishtawal, Fukutomi, Tomita, and Yamazaki presented our researches. These include; time space characteristics of atmospheric water balance in monsoon Asia, temporal variation of precipitable water in Yakutsk, eastern Siberia, surface energy/water balance in the tundra region and so forth. Soon after the GAME conference, Drs.Yamasaki, Takata, Yamazaki, Kuba, Nakamura, Tomita, Xu, Yoshikane, total of eight researchers participated in fall meeting of Meteorological Society of Japan, and presented their research results. They are; a study of cloud clusters associated with a Baiu front, snow models intercomparison project, cloud simulation using a detailed cloud microphysical model, result of the simulation of cloud system development associated with an extratropical cyclone, interannual variation of the meridional distribution of the Baiu front and so forth. The cloud and precipitation process group has been conducting numerical experiments of the cloud cluster involved Baiu Front during the special observation period of GAME/HUBEX (Huaihe River Basin Experiment). The results were presented by Group Leader Dr. Fujiyoshi at the HUBEX Workshop held in Kunming, China in December.

A Report from the 10th PICES Meeting in Victoria, B.C., Canada, 05-12 October, 2001 by Dr. S. Lan Smith, Carbon Cycle Group. I recently attended the tenth annual meeting of North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) with Dr. Kishi of our group to participate in the MODEL task team, which develops marine ecosystem models of the North Pacific Ocean. Both of us participated in the NEMURO workshop that this task team held (Nemuro, Hokkaido, Japan, February 2000), where a lower-trophic (phytoplankton, zooplankton, etc.) model was formulated. This time, we attended task team meetings with groups working to couple the NEMURO model to models of highertrophic levels such as fish, and discussed how this might be done. A major goal of the MODEL task team is to study how climate change may impact the carrying capacity of the ocean such as stocks of fish. This is relevant to society, and to the purpose of FRSGC. I also recommend highly the city of Victoria as a beautiful place for a meeting (or for a vacation).

A Russian scientist Dr. Leonid Yurganov, who expertises a remote sensing technique of atmospheric trace elements, has joined FRSGC since last October. During the past several years of his stay in US and Canada, he has been working for the data validation team for a satellite sensor MOPITT (Measurements Of Pollution In The Troposphere). Satellite remote sensing of tropospheric chemical species is one of the promising and growing subjects, and atmospheric chemists worldwide are gathering around this "cutting edge" field. By MOPITT horizontal distributions of CO and CH4 in the troposphere have been successfully retrieved on a global scale, which reveal their emissions into the atmosphere as well as their long-range transport across the globe. Dr. Yurganov is also challenging a retrieval of other tropospheric pollutants including NO2. At FRSGC, he will collaborate with chemical-transport modelers to make inter-comparisons between model results and satellite data.

Back	Cover	Next