Summary Account

To mitigate natural disasters due to torrential rain, heavy snow, typhoons, and other severe weather phenomena, we are working on the sophistication of numerical weather forecasts through the development and validation of a numerical weather prediction model. The reproducibility of severe weather phenomena in a numerical weather prediction is dependent on how well made up the model is for many physical processes including cloud and precipitation, and atmospheric turbulences. The cloud and precipitation directly affect heat and moisture budgets in the atmosphere through phase changes of water. The turbulences affect the dynamics of the atmosphere through dry air entrainment into a cloud as well as the exchanges of the momentum, heat, and moisture between the atmosphere and the earth's surface. They eventually affect the atmospheric phenomena as a whole. However, those processes are not fully understood yet. Using numerical simulations, laboratory experiments, and field observations, we study the cloud and precipitation, and atmospheric turbulence to improve the numerical weather prediction model. The works contribute to not only the prevention and mitigation of disasters, but also various activities, such as civic lives and business operations, traffic, agriculture farming, water resource management, and energy supply and demand.