[Japanese]

Themes of Our Research

Long-term variations of global-scale atmospheric circulations are examined by using observational data to understand the mechanism of unusual weather and climatic variability.

Various numerical experiments are performed with an atmospheric-ocean Coupled General Circulation Model (CGCM) to study, for example,

• (1) the effect of SST (sea surface temperature) on the atmosphere,
• (2) the effect of land surface conditions such as snow mass in Siberia on the Japanese climate, and
• (3) the effect of volcanic ash on the global climate.

Abnormal SSTs such as in El Nino events affect on the Japanese climate, indicating the importance of predicting SST for the long-range weather forecast. Hence, more sophisticated OGCM are developed and the performance of model in predicting SST is investigated.