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Research Introduction

Tropical air-sea coupled climate phenomena have significant impacts on our everyday life through various direct and indirect ways. El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), ENSO Modoki, Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and Atlantic Ninos besides the subtropical modes are some of these climate variation phenomena that are mostly caused by ocean variations with typical time-scales of months to decade. Though they develop in the tropics, their influences are not limited to low-latitude regions only. Those phenomena affect the weather and climate, including the Asian monsoon system, over the globe through atmospheric teleconnection. Therefore, accurate predictions of such variability and dissemination of predicted information are important to mitigate influences of extreme events most of which are associated with those climate variations.

We have been investigating oceanic and atmospheric processes responsible for those climate and ocean variations, mostly using a high-resolution coupled model (SINTEX-F) in addition to available observations and stand-alone ocean/atmosphere model results. The SINTEX-F coupled GCM is one of the leading models of the world to consistently predict IOD and ENSO on long lead-times. The model has also helped to understand mechanisms of IOD, ENSO and ENSO Modoki. We will continue to analyze climate processes and improve the seasonal predictions of the climate modes on longer than 2-year lead times.

Here, we introduce our research activities and some of the recent results on the climate variation phenomena and their prediction/predictability.

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