Unusual weather, occurring on a global scale in such extreme events as cool summers and warm winters, significantly impacts the social and economic activities of many countries. Besides these natural variations in climate, anticipated climate change due to human activities has now become one of the most important global environmental issues. In response to growing international concern about monitoring, understanding, and predicting the climate and its changes, many international programs, such as the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), are currently being implemented or planned.

Through active participation in the WCRP, the Climate Research Department places special emphasis on studies and analysis of unusual variations in weather and climate, the physical processes of climate and its changes, and understanding and predicting the climate and its changes through using numerical models. The objectives of these studies are to establish a physical basis for dynamic, long-range weather forecasts on a time scale of one to six months, to predict the global climate over periods of several months to several years, and to assess the response of the climate to natural and man-made influences over periods of years to decades.

Research on prediction of climate and environmental change to contribute to mitigation plan decision against climate change

Research on developments of state-of-the-art atmosphere-ocean coupled seasonal forecast model and of new ensemble method

• Sophistication of atmosphere-ocean coupled seasonal forecast model and of data assimilation technique

• Study on seasonal predictability in the earth system

• Development of seasonal prediction technique based on a non-hydrostatic atmospheric models

Observational Study of Radiative process in the Atmosphere

• Effects of Properties of Clouds and Aerosols on the Surface Radiation

A study of unusual weather in Japan and its relation to the climatic change

Study of Climate System and Climate Variability

Japan Reanalysis Project (JRA-25)

Innovative Program of Climate Change Projection for the 21st Century

• Extreme Event Projection
  

Comprehensive Projection of Climate Change around Japan due to the Global Warming

• Meteorological Research Institute-Earth System Model Version 1 (MRI-ESM1) -Model Description-, No.64, Technical Reports of the Meteorological Research Institute
  (PDF:8.5MB)

• Development of Earth System Model for Global Warming Projection

Development of Super High Resolution Global and Regional Climate Models
　　[Research Revolution 2002 (RR2002)]

• Development of the 20-km-mesh Global Climate Model

• Change of Asian summer monsoon in a global warming experiment by an atmospheric general circulation model with a 20-km grid