We report experimental observations of precipitable water vapor (PWV) derived using Global Positioning System/Global Navigation Satellite System (GPS/GNSS) receivers mounted on autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs), which were deployed in the tropical Pacific Ocean from July to September 2018. The GPS atmospheric delay was estimated by precise point positioning and converted to PWV with ASV surface meteorological

Impacts of historical warming on extremely heavy rainfall induced by Typhoon Hagibis (2019) are investigated using a storyline event attribution approach with the Japan Meteorological Agency Nonhydrostatic Model (JMA-NHM). Control experiments based on JMA mesoscale analysis data well reproduce the typhoon's track, intensity, and heavy precipitation. First, two non-warming experiments are conducted:

This study investigated characteristics of atmospheric environmental fields in the occurrence of quasi-stationary convective bands (QSCBs) in Kyushu, western Japan during the July 2020 heavy rainfall event. We performed case studies of extreme rainfall subevents in the Kumamoto and Kagoshima prefectures on 3-4 July (2020KK) and northern Kyushu on 6-7 July 2020 (2020NK), compared with two heavy rainfall

Relationship between diurnal convection and the intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) over the western Maritime Continent (MC) was investigated by a case study of an ISO event that occurred during the Years of the Maritime Continent (YMC)-Sumatra 2017 campaign. Two sets of global cloud-permitting simulations using cloud microphysics settings for ISO prediction (CTL) and for climate simulation (MOD) were

Typhoon Hagibis (2019) caused widespread flooding and damage over eastern Japan. The associated rainfall maxima were primarily observed on the windward mountain slopes along with the west of the leading edge of a low-level front. Concomitantly, a significant positive value in sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) was observed in association with an ocean eddy over the Oyashio region, together with

We investigate regional characteristics of future changes in snowfall in Japan under two emission scenarios—RCP2.6 and RCP8.5—using a high-resolution regional climate model with 5 km grid spacing and discuss the influence of changes in atmospheric circulation. The high-resolution model can simulate details of changes in distributions of total snowfall in Japan. Under RCP2.6, the annual total snowfall

Numerical experiments on Typhoon Trami (2018) using a regional 1-km-mesh three-dimensional atmosphere–ocean coupled model in current and pseudo-global warming (PGW) climates were conducted to investigate future changes of a slow-moving intense typhoon under the warming climate. Over the warmer sea in the PGW climate, the maximum near-surface wind speed rapidly increased around the large eye of the

Synoptic circulation patterns associated with heavy snowfall events in Sapporo are examined using large ensemble simulation with 60-km global climate experiments. For snowfall, a 5-km dynamically downscaled model from the 20-km regional simulation is utilized. To identify synoptic circulation patterns, self-organizing maps (SOMs) are applied, and their response to a warming climate is examined. The

Aerosol effects on deep convective cloud (DCC) have been recognized as one of the complex subjects in climatic studies because of the difficulty in quantifying the sole effect of aerosols on DCC. The complexity further arises if the atmosphere has very strong temporal and spatial variations such as that of Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP) region. Considering the strong influence of IPWP region on global

We quantified the global bromine- and iodine-mediated tropospheric ozone loss using global chemical transport model simulations. We tested three datasets of very short-lived substances (VSLS) emissions, three datasets of sea surface iodide concentrations, and an explicit representation of the effects of multi-phase reactions at the air-sea boundary on dry deposition. We then determined optimal model

This study investigated the impact of sea surface temperature (SST) on a snowfall event of late January 2018 on Kanto, Honshu, Japan, associated with an extratropical cyclone (south-coast cyclone) along the Pacific side, during the Kuroshio large meandering period by a regional atmospheric model. We addressed SST impacts on the snowfall event under almost the same synoptic-scale conditions, such as

Since March 2012, multi-year ground-based observation of atmospheric aerosol particles has been carried out in Tsukuba, Japan to characterize the aerosol particle number concentrations (NCs), air mass origin relevance, and specifically, their cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and ice nucleating particle (INP) characteristics. The CCN NCs at any water supersaturation (SS) exhibit strong seasonality, being

Heavy rainfalls often occur when a tropical cyclone (TC) exists on the sea off the south coast. These pre-typhoon rainfalls (PRE) is associated with the northward moisture transport ahead of the TC. In this paper, we examine the northward moisture transport by the ageostrophic winds associated with typhoon T0918 (Melor) and its impact on PRE. According to a numerical simulation conducted in the previous

The thermal stress along a marathon course in Tokyo is evaluated using a radiation balance model. The wet-bulb globe temperatures (WBGTs) for runners and spectators are calculated based on the surrounding building and tree geometries using the Solar LongWave Environmental Irradiance Geometry model. Analysis is conducted in terms of summer days in August 2018, which was during the hottest summer in

One of the remarkable environmental characteristics of tropical cyclone (TC) Hagibis (2019) was the positive sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly observed in the western North Pacific Ocean. In this study, an ensemble-based sensitivity experiment was conducted with a nonhydrostatic model, focusing on the impact of SST on TC motion. The TC with the analyzed SST (warm run) moved faster near mainland

Aircraft observations were conducted over the eastern mountainous areas of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in September 2017 to characterize the microphysical properties of diurnal convective clouds. Aerosol particle and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) measurements indicate that the air mass had a continental nature, resulting in high cloud droplet concentrations of 600-800 cm−3. Two case studies were

Japan underwent a nationwide self-restraint of human activities in spring 2020 to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 infection. In order to evaluate the effect of suppressed human activities on temperature in the Tokyo Metropolitan area, a statistical analysis was made for temperature anomalies during the self-restraint period using hourly data on the AMeDAS network. The temperature anomaly was defined

We show that a modification to the latent heat flux (LHF) formulation in Non-hydrostatic Icosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM) impacts the representation of a Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) event during the Pre-Years of the Maritime Continent (Pre-YMC) field campaign in 2015. First, we compare the LHFs computed by the standard NICAM setting with those estimated from the ship observation during Pre-YMC

A shipboard lidar system was examined the capability to retrieve detailed variation of the water vapor mixing ratio in and above the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL). The water vapor mixing ratio is retrieved from the ratio of Raman lidar signals by water vapor and by nitrogen, with the help of radiosonde data beside. Data obtained during two special observations, Pre-YMC and YMC-Sumatra, off

This study investigated rainfall trends and their associations with tropical cyclones (TCs) during the period of 1979-2019, using TC best-track data from the Regional Specialized Meteorological Center Tokyo - Typhoon Center and daily rainfall data from 138 meteorological stations in Vietnam. The radius of influence of TCs on local rainfall was limited to 500 km from TC centers. The average annual number

To discuss the feasibility of the Himawari follow-on program, impacts of a hyperspectral sounder on a geostationary satellite (GeoHSS) is assessed using an observing system simulation experiment. Hypothetical GeoHSS observations are simulated by using an accurate reanalysis dataset for a heavy rainfall event in western Japan in 2018. The global data assimilation experiment demonstrates that the assimilation

Although wetlands are the largest natural source of atmospheric methane, the amount and variability of methane emissions from wetlands still have large uncertainty. We investigated the local growth rate of the column-averaged methane dry air mole fraction (XCH4) in Siberia where wetlands are widely abundant using 11-year (2009-2019) Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) data. While the mean

The Years of the Maritime Continent or YMC is a multi-national and multi-year effort, which aims at improving our understanding and prediction skill of the weather-climate systems over the Maritime Continent (MC) as well as its global impact. Its field campaign phase has been started since July 2017 and is scheduled to continue beyond 2020. During the campaign period, many intensive observations have

Given vigorous mean diurnal variation (MDV) of cumulus convection and surface wind over coastal waters of the Indonesian Maritime Continent, surface sensible and latent heat fluxes (SHF and LHF) are expected to also exhibit significant MDV. However, it is difficult to grasp characteristics of MDV of these fluxes due to lack of surface observation data. Recently, two intensive observation campaigns