著者
Shinya KOBAYASHI Yukinari OTA Yayoi HARADA Ayataka EBITA Masami MORIYA Hirokatsu ONODA Kazutoshi ONOGI Hirotaka KAMAHORI Chiaki KOBAYASHI Hirokazu ENDO Kengo MIYAOKA Kiyotoshi TAKAHASHI
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
気象集誌. 第2輯 (ISSN:00261165)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.93, no.1, pp.5-48, 2015 (Released:2015-03-18)
参考文献数
128
被引用文献数
213 3128

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) conducted the second Japanese global atmospheric reanalysis, called the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis or JRA-55. It covers the period from 1958, when regular radiosonde observations began on a global basis. JRA-55 is the first comprehensive reanalysis that has covered the last half-century since the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts 45-year Reanalysis (ERA-40), and is the first one to apply four-dimensional variational analysis to this period. The main objectives of JRA-55 were to address issues found in previous reanalyses and to produce a comprehensive atmospheric dataset suitable for studying multidecadal variability and climate change. This paper describes the observations, data assimilation system, and forecast model used to produce JRA-55 as well as the basic characteristics of the JRA-55 product. JRA-55 has been produced with the TL319 version of JMA’s operational data assimilation system as of December 2009, which was extensively improved since the Japanese 25-year Reanalysis (JRA-25). It also uses several newly available and improved past observations. The resulting reanalysis products are considerably better than the JRA-25 product. Two major problems of JRA-25 were a cold bias in the lower stratosphere, which has been diminished, and a dry bias in the Amazon basin, which has been mitigated. The temporal consistency of temperature analysis has also been considerably improved compared to previous reanalysis products. Our initial quality evaluation revealed problems such as a warm bias in the upper troposphere, large upward imbalance in the global mean net energy fluxes at the top of the atmosphere and at the surface, excessive precipitation over the tropics, and unrealistic trends in analyzed tropical cyclone strength. This paper also assesses the impacts of model biases and changes in the observing system, and mentions efforts to further investigate the representation of low-frequency variability and trends in JRA-55.
著者
Youichi KAMAE Wei MEI Shang-Ping XIE
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
気象集誌. 第2輯 (ISSN:00261165)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.95, no.6, pp.411-431, 2017 (Released:2017-11-14)
参考文献数
76
被引用文献数
54

Eddy transport of atmospheric water vapor from the tropics is important for rainfall and related natural disasters in the middle latitudes. Atmospheric rivers (ARs), intense moisture plumes that are typically associated with extratropical cyclones, often produce heavy precipitation upon encountering topography on the west coasts of mid-latitude North America and Europe. ARs also occur over the northwestern Pacific and sometimes cause floods and landslides over East Asia, but the climatological relationship between ARs and heavy rainfall in this region remains unclear. Here we evaluate the contribution of ARs to the hydrological cycle over East Asia using high-resolution daily rainfall observations and an atmospheric reanalysis during 1958-2007. Despite their low occurrence, ARs account for 14-44 % of the total rainfall and 20-90 % of extreme heavy-rainfall events during spring, summer, and autumn. AR-related extreme rainfall is especially pronounced over western-to-southeastern slopes of terrains over the Korean Peninsula and Japan, owing to strong orographic effects and a stable direction of low-level moisture flows. A strong relationship between warm-season AR heavy rainfall and preceding-winter El Niño is identified since the 1970s, suggesting the potential of predicting heavy-rainfall risk over Korea and Japan at seasonal leads.
著者
Toshinori AOYAGI Nobuyuki KAYABA Naoko SEINO
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
気象集誌. 第2輯 (ISSN:00261165)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.90B, pp.11-31, 2012 (Released:2012-06-09)
参考文献数
32
被引用文献数
10 18 4

We investigated a warming trend in the Kanto-Koshin area during a 30-year period (1976-2006). The warming trends at AMeDAS stations were estimated to average a little less than 1.3°C/30 years in both summer and winter. These warming trends were considered to include the trends of large-scale and local-scale warming effects. Because a regional climate model with 20-km resolution without any urban parameterization could not well express the observed warming trends and their daily variations, we investigated whether a mesoscale atmospheric model with an urban canopy scheme could express them.To make the simulations realistic, we used 3 sets of real data: National Land Numerical Information datasets for the estimation of the land use area fractions, anthropogenic heat datasets varying in space and time, and GIS datasets of building shapes in the Tokyo Metropolis for the setting of building aspect ratios. The time integrations over 2 months were executed for both summer and winter. A certain level of correlation was found between the simulated temperature rises and the observed warming trends at the AMeDAS stations. The daily variation of the temperature rises in urban grids was higher at night than in the daytime, and its range was larger in winter than in summer. Such tendencies were consistent with the observational results.From factor analyses, we figured out the classic and some unexpected features of urban warming, as follows: (1) Land use distribution change (mainly caused by the decrease of vegetation cover) had the largest daytime warming effect, and the effect was larger in summer than in winter; (2) anthropogenic heat had a warming effect with 2 small peaks owing to the daily variation of the released heat and the timing of stable atmospheric layer formation; and (3) increased building height was the largest factor contributing to the temperature rises, with a single peak in early morning.
著者
Hiroyuki Yamada Tomoe Nasuno Wataru Yanase Masaki Satoh
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
SOLA (ISSN:13496476)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.12, pp.203-208, 2016 (Released:2016-08-03)
参考文献数
26
被引用文献数
1 17

Typhoon Fengshen (2008) was marked by a persistent track toward the northwest, which was poorly predicted by an operational hydrostatic model, which indicated a significant northward bias. Using a global nonhydrostatic model with finer grid spacing, we have simulated a reliable track of this typhoon. The purpose of this study is to clarify the causes of the northward bias by comparing the output of the two models. This typhoon was marked by the asymmetry of rainfall concentrating in the downshear side. While both models could reproduce the asymmetric structure, a significant difference between them was found in the vertical structure. In the hydrostatic model, the vortex tilted to the downshear side with a displacement from lower to upper levels exceeding 100 km. This tilt was related to weak updrafts of, at most, 0.5 m s−1. Diagnosis using vorticity budget demonstrated that the tilt of the vortex resulted from a lack of vertical coupling that was too weak to withstand differential advection between the lower and upper levels. These results suggest the importance of reproducing inner-core updrafts for better track prediction of a typhoon in an environment with strong vertical shear.
著者
Kentaro Araki Masataka Murakami Hiroshi Ishimoto Takuya Tajiri
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
SOLA (ISSN:13496476)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.11, pp.108-112, 2015 (Released:2015-08-11)
参考文献数
45
被引用文献数
7

Ground-based microwave radiometer (MWR) has been used for high-frequency retrievals of thermodynamic environments. However, raindrops on the radome of MWR and in the air cause errors in retrievals during precipitation events. Although a recent study has noted that off-zenith observations with neural networks (NN) reduce the retrieval errors, the effect of off-zenith observations with one-dimensional variational (1DVAR) technique, which is known to be more accurate than other methods, has not been studied. We developed a new 1DVAR technique that considers the effect of cloud liquid water. We statistically investigated the accuracy of vertical profiles of atmospheric temperature and water vapor retrieved by NN and 1DVAR techniques by using zenith and off-zenith observation at 15° elevation angle under no-rain and rainy conditions and compared them with results of radiosonde observations. The results showed that the 1DVAR technique outperforms NN and numerical model simulation in the estimation of thermodynamic profiles under no-rain conditions. The results also indicated that the error in retrieved profiles in the low-level troposphere can be reduced by the 1DVAR technique by using off-zenith observations even under rainy conditions with rainfall rate less than 1.0 mm h−1, especially when the environment cannot be accurately reproduced by a numerical model.
著者
Masatake E. Hori Jun Inoue Takashi Kikuchi Meiji Honda Yoshihiro Tachibana
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
SOLA (ISSN:13496476)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.7, pp.25-28, 2011 (Released:2011-02-10)
参考文献数
12
被引用文献数
16 36

In the winter of 2009/2010, Japan and the East Asian region experienced a frequent occurrence of cold air outbreaks. Although the winter average temperature in the Japan main islands was slightly positive (+0.81°C for DJF average and +0.71°C for NDJFM average), repeated decline in temperature was notable throughout the season. One explanation for this abnormal winter season is the extremely negative condition of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) that persisted from December to mid-January. However, AO alone does not provide sufficient explanation for the cold air outbreak during November or its intraseasonal periodicity. A case study of the cold air outbreak that reached Japan on Dec. 18 reveals an anomalous ridge forming over the Barents-Kara Sea, which leads to the cold air accumulation over western Siberia. The pressure anomaly subsequently shifted westward to mature into a blocking high which created a wave-train pattern downstream, advecting the cold air eastward towards East Asia and Japan. The sequence of events was also apparent in multiple cases throughout the season. This study suggests that there is a strong and systematic linkage in the intraseasonal timescale between the atmospheric condition over the Barents-Kara Sea and the cold air accumulation over the Eurasian continent, leading to the anomalous cold air outbreak over East Asia and Japan. The mechanism may also provide explanation to extreme winter conditions such as those observed during the winter of 2010/2011.
著者
Ken-ichi Shimose Shingo Shimizu Takeshi Maesaka Ryohei Kato Kaori Kieda Koyuru Iwanami
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
SOLA (ISSN:13496476)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.12, pp.215-219, 2016 (Released:2016-08-05)
参考文献数
28
被引用文献数
4

This study investigated the impact of observation operators on low-level wind speed analysis. An evaluation of wind speeds retrieved by variational multiple-Doppler analyses using radial velocities (Vr) based on the formats of both a Plan Position Indicator (PPI) (hereafter, PPI-VAR) and a Constant Altitude Plan Position Indicator (CAPPI) (hereafter, CAPPI-VAR) was performed for comparison with wind speeds observed by a wind profiler during the warm season of three consecutive years. The statistical analysis showed that PPI-VAR was more accurate than CAPPI-VAR at 500 m above ground level (AGL). The error of CAPPI-VAR at 500 m AGL was caused by a representative error of CAPPI-formatted Vr derived from a certain radar whose beam height was far from the analysis level, and this error became more obvious the greater the vertical difference in wind speed across the analysis level. CAPPI-VAR uses CAPPI-formatted Vr from each radar equally; thus, the representative error might cause performance degradation of CAPPI-VAR at 500 m AGL. Conversely, PPI-VAR uses PPI-formatted Vr from each radar with appropriate weighting based on the beam height distance from the analysis level. PPI-VAR showed better results at 500 m AGL because the observation grid points were dense around 500 m AGL.
著者
Takashi Unuma Tetsuya Takemi
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
SOLA (ISSN:13496476)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.12, pp.111-115, 2016 (Released:2016-05-06)
参考文献数
27
被引用文献数
1 20

A role of environmental shear on the organization mode of warm-season quasi-stationary convective clusters (QSCCs) was statistically investigated by using operational weather radar and radiosonde data from May to October during 2005-2012. With the use of an ellipse-fitting method, the total number of QSCCs whose shape was determined was 2549. It was found that 87% of the QSCCs have an aspect ratio of larger than 1.4, suggesting that the elongated mode is dominant during the warm season in Japan. The elongated QSCCs were mostly oriented southwest–northeast. The analyses of the environmental shear direction with respect to the orientation of the elongated QSCCs showed that the wind shear direction at the lower troposphere is mainly parallel to the orientation of the elongated QSCCs. A comparison between the elongated and the circular QSCCs with the environmental parameters showed that the lower convective instability and stronger intensity of the low-level shear clearly characterize the elongated QSCC environments. A parameter combining convective instability and shear, bulk Richardson number, characterizes the environmental conditions for determining the organization mode of the QSCCs, suggesting that a back-building mechanism should play a role in generating the elongated QSCCs.
著者
Tsuyoshi Thomas SEKIYAMA Mizuo KAJINO Masaru KUNII
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
気象集誌. 第2輯 (ISSN:00261165)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.95, no.6, pp.447-454, 2017 (Released:2017-11-14)
参考文献数
26
被引用文献数
17

We investigated the predictability of plume advection in the lower troposphere and the impact of AMeDAS surface wind data assimilation by using radioactive cesium emitted by the Fukushima nuclear accident in March 2011 as an atmospheric tracer. We conducted two experiments of radioactive plume predictions over eastern Japan for March 15, 2011 with a 3-km horizontal resolution using the Japan Meteorological Agency non-hydrostatic weather forecast model and local ensemble transform Kalman filter (JMANHM-LETKF) data assimilation system. The assimilated meteorological data were obtained from the standard archives collected for the Japan Meteorological Agency operational numerical weather prediction and the AMeDAS surface wind observations. The standard archives do not contain land-surface wind observations. The modeled radioactive cesium concentrations were examined for plume arrival times at 40 observatories. The mean error of the plume arrival times for the standard experiment (assimilating only the standard archives) was 82.0 min with a 13-h lead-time on an average. In contrast, the mean error of the AMeDAS experiment (assimilating both the standard archives and AMeDAS surface wind observations) was 72.8 min, which was 9.2 min (11 %) better than that of the standard experiment. This result indicates that the plume prediction has a reasonable accuracy for the environmental emergency response and the prediction can be significantly improved by the surface wind data assimilation.
著者
Tomoe NASUNO Kazuyoshi KIKUCHI Masuo NAKANO Yohei YAMADA Mikiko IKEDA Hiroshi TANIGUCHI
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
気象集誌. 第2輯 (ISSN:00261165)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.95, no.6, pp.345-368, 2017 (Released:2017-11-14)
参考文献数
79
被引用文献数
7

By comparison with satellite and field observations, the comprehensive performance and potential utility of near real-time forecasts using Nonhydrostatic Icosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM) are demonstrated by exploiting the Cooperative Indian Ocean Experiment on Intraseasonal Variability in the Year 2011 (CINDY2011) / Dynamics of the Madden–Julian Oscillation (DYNAMO) campaign. A week-long forecast was run each day using a regionally stretched version of NICAM, with the finest mesh size of 14 km over the tropical Indian Ocean (IO), throughout the intensive observation period (IOP).  The simulated precipitation time series fairly represented the evolution and propagation of the observed Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) events, although a 30 % overprediction of precipitation over the IO domain (60–90°E, 10°S–10°N) was found on average. Frequencies of strong (> 40 mm day−1) precipitation were overpredicted, while those of weak precipitation were underpredicted against satellite observations. Compared with the field observations at Gan Island, the biases in precipitation frequency were less obvious, whereas the growth of lower to middle tropospheric dry (∼ 1 g kg−1) and warm (∼ 1 K) biases were found. Despite these mean biases, temporal variations of the moisture and zonal wind profiles including the MJO events were reasonably simulated. Using the forecast data the moisture and energy budgets during the IOP were investigated. The diagnosis using the 7-day-mean fields captured the observed features of the MJO events. Meanwhile, significant upward transport of moisture by the grid-resolved high-frequency variability was detected throughout the IOP. The relationship between these high-frequency effects and the simulated MJO or mean biases is also discussed.
著者
Nobuyuki Kayaba Takashi Yamada Syugo Hayashi Kazutoshi Onogi Shinya Kobayashi Koichi Yoshimoto Kenji Kamiguchi Kazuya Yamashita
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
SOLA (ISSN:13496476)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.12, pp.1-5, 2016 (Released:2016-01-20)
参考文献数
8
被引用文献数
29

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) completed its second global atmospheric reanalysis, the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55). However, the horizontal spatial resolution of JRA-55, TL319 (about 55 km), is insufficient for representing the hilly topography of the Japanese islands. Therefore, to reproduce extreme events caused by the hilly topography and their long-term climatological change in Japan, JMA has conducted a dynamical regional downscaling, called DSJRA-55, based on JMA's operational mesoscale model, which has a horizontal resolution of 5 km. DSJRA-55 receives its initial field and boundary conditions from the JRA-55 reanalysis. DSJRA-55 is historically the first products in the world that covers very long term for 55 years with very high resolution in 5 km. Furthermore, DSJRA-55 does not perform data assimilation; instead, initial field and boundary conditions are given at frequent intervals to the downscaled model and short-range forecasts are performed. Then, successive forecasts are connected continuously to create the DSJRA-55 product. In early evaluation results, DSJRA-55 was able to reproduce observed temperature and precipitation during 1958-2012. Although it showed a systematic temperature bias in some regions and seasons and it underestimated the frequencies of heavy-rain days and heavy-rain hours, DSJRA-55 reproduced the overall distribution of orographic precipitation well. DSJRA-55 is therefore expected to be useful for analyzing past extreme events and for statistical studies of long-term climate.
著者
Miki Hattori Jun Matsumoto Shin-Ya Ogino Takeshi Enomoto Takemasa Miyoshi
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
SOLA (ISSN:13496476)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.12, pp.75-79, 2016 (Released:2016-03-08)
参考文献数
17
被引用文献数
7

The impact of additional radiosonde observations during the Vietnam-Philippines Rainfall Experiment 2010 (VPREX2010) was investigated by performing observing system experiments using the local ensemble transform Kalman filter (LETKF) and the atmospheric general circulation model for the Earth Simulator (AFES). During the experimental period from 15 September to 15 October, 2010, a westward-propagating disturbance was developed in the South China Sea and caused heavy rainfall on the east coast of Vietnam and Hainan Island. By assimilating the additional radiosondes, significant increases in wind speed, temperature and specific humidity were detected in the lower troposphere around the disturbance. In addition, the analysis ensemble spread for meridional wind decreased by 5-25% across the Indochina Peninsula, Philippines Sea and western Pacific to the south of Japan. Moreover, winds became stronger around the disturbance due to the additional observations, and the ensemble spread for wind speed became larger. The results show that the disturbance in an early stage of development was not well detected in the South China Sea without the use of additional radiosonde observations. Therefore, it is suggested that continuous and intensive radiosonde observations in Vietnam and the Philippines are essential for the improvement of the objective analysis of such disturbances.
著者
Masashi Kohma Kaoru Sato
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
SOLA (ISSN:13496476)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.9, pp.9-14, 2013 (Released:2013-02-02)
参考文献数
27
被引用文献数
1

It is shown that there are two types of wave solutions trapped at the boundaries which owe to the Coriolis force proportional to the meridional component of the earth's rotation vector (hereafter referred to as the fH force) under the nontraditional approximation (non-TA). One is a type of Kelvin waves (non-TA Kelvin waves) trapped on the eastern and western boundaries. Unlike traditional Kelvin waves (TA Kelvin waves), non-TA Kelvin waves trapped on the western (eastern) boundary can have northward (southward) phase and group velocities in the Northern Hemisphere (NH). The other is a type of Rossby waves trapped on the ground. The external Rossby waves can have wave structure in the vertical and amplitudes decaying with height. Moreover, the fH force modifies even the characteristics of TA Kelvin waves trapped on the southern and northern boundaries: In the NH, the Kelvin waves trapped on the southern boundary have an upper limit (kc) to the zonal wavenumber (k), and those with large k (> kc) trapped on the northern boundary have eastward phase velocity in the NH. The latter is regarded as the third type of edge waves unique to non-TA.
著者
Kentaro Araki Hiroshi Ishimoto Masataka Murakami Takuya Tajiri
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
SOLA (ISSN:13496476)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.10, pp.57-61, 2014 (Released:2014-04-24)
参考文献数
20
被引用文献数
1 3

We examined proximity soundings at intervals of a few minutes and at distances of less than 20 km from a significant tornadic (SIGTOR) supercell that occurred on 6 May 2012 in Japan. We used a 1-dimensional variational (1DVAR) technique that combined the observations of a ground-based microwave radiometer with outputs from a numerical model. Based on the results of the 1DVAR, several supercell and tornado forecast parameters were calculated and compared with values typical of SIGTOR supercell environments in the United States. One and a half hours before the occurrence of the tornado, the value of convective available potential energy increased significantly to about 1000 J kg−1, a value that is smaller than the typical value in the United States. Low-level vertical wind shear and some composite parameters attained maximum values at the time when the distance to the supercell was the smallest. The vertical wind shear parameters and some composite parameters indicated that the environment fell into the SIGTOR supercell category. This result shows that the thermodynamic environments became unstable before the approach of the supercell, and the low-level vertical wind shear changed locally near the supercell.
著者
TERASAKI Koji MIYOSHI Takemasa
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
気象集誌. 第2輯 (ISSN:00261165)
巻号頁・発行日
pp.2017-028, (Released:2017-09-15)
被引用文献数
18

An observation operator to assimilate satellite radiances with the Non-hydrostatic Icosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM)-based Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter (LETKF) is newly developed using the radiative transfer model RTTOV (Radiative Transfer for the TOVS (TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder)) version 11.1. Here we assimilate the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A) brightness temperature observations which are known to bring a large improvement to global numerical weather prediction. We apply the online estimation of bias correction for both airmass and scan biases, or the biases originating from the atmospheric state and scan position. Comparing the two experiments with and without the AMSU-A radiances, we find that the adaptive bias correction methods work appropriately, and that the analysis is significantly improved by assimilating the AMSU-A radiances. This is an important step toward assimilating different types of satellite radiances with NICAM-LETKF.
著者
Nurfiena Sagita PUTRI Tadahiro HAYASAKA Kim Dionne WHITEHALL
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
気象集誌. 第2輯 (ISSN:00261165)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.95, no.6, pp.391-409, 2017 (Released:2017-11-14)
参考文献数
30
被引用文献数
11

A mesoscale convective system (MCS) is organized thunderstorms with connected anvils, which has a significant impact on the global climate. By focusing on MCSs over the Maritime Continent of Indonesia, this study aims to gain a better understanding on the properties of the MCSs over the study area. The “Grab ‘em Tag ‘em Graph ‘em” (GTG) tracking algorithm is applied to hourly Multi-functional Transport Satellite-1R data for two years to observe the distribution of MCSs and the evolution of MCSs along their lifetime. The results of MCS identification by using GTG are combined with CloudSat data products to study the vertical structure of the MCSs at various MCS life stages: developing, mature, and dissipating. The distribution of MCSs over Indonesia has a seasonal variation and distinct diurnal cycle. The life stages of the observed MCSs are characterized by distinct cloud microphysics at each stage. In the developing stage, the upper level of the MCS raining region shows the presence of precipitating ice particles. As the MCS progresses to the mature stage, the proportion of the raining area becomes small and the intensity of rain is reduced, accompanied by increasing occurrence of small-sized ice particles at the upper level. In the dissipating stage, large hydrometeors no longer exist at the upper part of the raining region. Within the MCS anvils, the dissipating stage shows a more uniform distribution of ice-particle effective radius compared to that shown by the developing and mature stages. MCS characteristics over the land and ocean differ on the basis of the minimum brightness temperature, the equivalent radius, the maximum rain rate, and the rain fraction that varies along the MCS evolution.
著者
ROH Woosub SATOH Masaki
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
気象集誌. 第2輯 (ISSN:00261165)
巻号頁・発行日
pp.2018-002, (Released:2017-09-29)
被引用文献数
10

As an alternative approach to the previous multisensor satellite evaluation method of cloud system resolving models, a method is presented using combined infrared and microwave channels for precipitation clouds in cloud system resolving models over the ocean. This method determines characteristics of cloud-top temperatures and ice scatterings for clouds using infrared 11-μm and microwave high frequencies (89.0 GHz) brightness temperatures (TBs). The threshold of the TB at low frequencies (18.7 GHz) is also used to identify precipitation regions. This method extends the previous approach via the wider swath of the passive microwave sensor and sensitivities to ice clouds compared to the previous Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)-based analysis method using the narrower coverage of the Precipitation Radar. The numerical results of the non-hydrostatic icosahedral atmospheric model (NICAM) with two cloud microphysics schemes are evaluated over the tropical open ocean using this method. The intensities of the scatterings in the two simulations at 89.0 GHz are different due to the parameterizations of the snow and graupel size distributions. A bimodal size distribution of the snow improved the underestimation of the TBs at 89.0 GHz. These results have a similar structure to the joint histograms of cloud-top temperatures and precipitation-top heights in the previous method: the overestimated intensity of scattering and the frequencies of high precipitation-top heights above 12 km in the control experiment. We find that the change in the snow size distribution in the cloud microphysics scheme can lead to better agreements of simulated TBs at 89.0 GHz with observations. We further investigate impacts of non-spherical assumptions for snow using a satellite simulator. The effect of a non-spherical shape of snow in the radiative transfer model causes a smaller change of TBs at 89.0 GHz compared to the difference between the TBs of the two simulations without non-spherical assumptions.
著者
Eigo TOCHIMOTO Tetsuya KAWANO
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
気象集誌. 第2輯 (ISSN:00261165)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.95, no.4, pp.217-237, 2017 (Released:2017-07-04)
参考文献数
39
被引用文献数
4

In Part I of this study, the development processes of Baiu frontal depressions (BFDs) have been examined through case-study numerical experiments. The numerical simulations revealed that latent heating is dominant for the development of BFDs in the western part of the Baiu frontal zone (W-BFDs), west of approximately 140°E, while both latent heating and baroclinicity are important for the development of BFDs in the eastern part of the zone (E-BFDs), east of approximately 140°E. In this study, idealized numerical simulations with zonally homogeneous basic fields are conducted to obtain a more generalized perspective of the development processes of BFDs. The basic fields for the idealized simulations are made from the composites of the environments under which 28 W-BFDs and 43 E-BFDs developed. The idealized simulations successfully reproduce a realistic W-BFD and E-BFD. The W-BFD has a slightly westward-tilted vertical structure, modulated by latent heating at low levels of the atmosphere. In contrast, the E-BFD has a westward-tilted structure through the troposphere, similar to the well-known baroclinic wave structure. Results of available potential energy diagnosis for the effects of latent heating and baroclinicity on the BFD development are consistent with those in Part I. The W-BFD has a mechanism mainly driven by latent heating yielding strong convection, while the E-BFD develops through baroclinic instability in moist atmosphere.
著者
Yasuko OKADA Tetsuya TAKEMI Hirohiko ISHIKAWA Shoji KUSUNOKI Ryo MIZUTA
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
気象集誌. 第2輯 (ISSN:00261165)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.95, no.4, pp.239-260, 2017 (Released:2017-07-04)
参考文献数
45
被引用文献数
20

This study investigates future changes in atmospheric circulation during the Baiu in Japan using 20-km-mesh atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) simulations for the present-day (1979-2003) and the future (2075-2099) climates under the Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 scenario. The simulated future climates include the outputs obtained with one control sea surface temperature (SST) and three different SST patterns. The Baiu frontal zone, defined as the meridional gradient of equivalent potential temperature, gradually moves northward during June–July–August in the present-day climate. In the future climate simulations using the control SST, the Baiu frontal zone is projected to stay to the south of Japan in June. Thus, precipitation is projected to increase over this region, while decreasing in the western part of Japan. Future changes in precipitation and atmospheric circulations in June are consistent across all four SST patterns. However, precipitation and atmospheric circulation in July and August in the future climate simulation depends on the SST patterns as follows: in non-El Niño-like SST pattern, the Baiu terminates in late July, similar to that of the present-day climate; a result with an El Niño-like SST pattern shows that sufficient amount moisture is transported to the Japanese islands and leads in a delay of the Baiu termination until August; and in the SST pattern with strong warming in the western North Pacific (WNP), a sufficient amount of moisture is transported to the south of Japan from June until August. The difference in the SST pattern leads to a variation in sea-level pressure in the WNP and affects a variation of the Northern Pacific subtropical high around the Japanese islands in July and August.