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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. |
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Railway track on a
bridge beam to minimize
heat disturbances
at the ground
Railway embankment to
release heat effectively.
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Introduction of the research of Dr. Kazuyuki Saito
Area underlain by seasonally or perennially frozen ground occupies more than half of the
northern hemisphere (NH) open (excl. glaciers and ice sheets) land surface. It is the largest
component of the terrestrial cryosphere under the current climate, larger than seasonal snow
cover, which covers up to 45% of the NH open surface.
Depth of freezing/thawing varies from place to place. However, weakened soil-freezing of the
upper several meters, through natural or anthropogenic disturbances, can already affect the local
hydroclimate, vegetation, and the socio-economic activities. Furthermore, the physical, chemical
and/or biological interactions and feedbacks may transfer the influences on regional to
hemispheric scales. Our group has been developing and improving the terrestrial scheme for
GCMs, that implements the essential processes so that we can gain better understandings of
the frozen-ground change and its large-scale, as well as local-scale, influences.
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| High-latitude and/or high-altitude areas are more vulnerable. In August 2006, I attended the Asian Permafrost Conference in Lanzhou, China, and the subsequent field excursion to the Tibetan Plateau, with the Qinghai-Tibet Railway where the minimum altitude of permafrost has been lifting up in the receut years.
Photos : The Qinghai-Tibet Railway: Railway tracks have constructed after the results of various
kinds of research to minimize influences to permafrost under different land and climate conditions. |
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Introduction of the research of Dr.Akinori Ito and Dr.Kentaro Ishijima
We have got the ability beyond other animals by controlling ignition. We used fires to
clear land for our living. Now, most of the biomass burning takes place in the tropical
belt and is associated with human practices. Warming and earlier spring will increase
wildfire activity in boreal and temperate forests. The biomass burning is one of the most
significant sources of trace gases and aerosols on a global scale and influence an air quality
and climate. I deliver the "hot" research topics at the joint IGAC/CACGP/WMO Symposium, September
2006, Cape Town, South Africa. (Akinori Ito)
Since the industrialization in the 19th century, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases
such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O)
have much increased due to human activities. Therefore, possible bad impacts on global environment,
such as global warming and following climate change are the recent concerns. N2O has 300
times global warming potential of that of CO2, and is related to depletion of ozone layer,
so recently the N2O research is getting important. At FRCGC, I am trying to understand the global cycle
of N2O and to quantify its sources, by numerical simulation using a global model. (Kentaro Ishijima) |
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