3rd RIKEN-Kyoto University Joint Workshop on Data Assimilation

The third workshop was held on Monday, July 28, 2014, in Kobe, following the first (blog) and the second. Four mathematicians and seven from my group on the application side discussed about mathematical problems on data assimilation. This time, my group provided several specific problems that we have been facing in our various application research.

Welcome lunch for Drs. Guo-Yuan Lien and Juan Ruiz

On Friday, July 11, 2014, we had a warm welcoming party for Drs. Guo-Yuan Lien (back row, fourth from left) and Juan Ruiz (front row, left most) over lunch in Kachoen. Our lab has been growing consistently by now, with eight full-time scientists and technical staff and three supporting staff in addition to five visiting scientists. Dr. Lien recently graduated from the University of Maryland, and his main focus was precipitation data assimilation in global numerical weather prediction. He will work on Big Data Assimilation (BDA) with the next-generation LES (large-eddy simulation) weather model SCALE. As for Dr. Ruiz, this is his third visit to Japan, and this time, he will stay for three months. He will also work on the BDA project with particular foci on the quality control of the Osaka/Kobe Phased Array Weather Radar and on parameter estimation methods in BDA applications.

Visiting Phased Array Weather Radar in Osaka University

On July 9, 2014, we have visited Professor Ushio at the Osaka University Suita Campus and had a wonderful opportunity to look at the Phased Array Weather Radar (top photo). Professor Ushio was very kind and stopped the radar operation for us to enter the radar dome to look inside. There was a large flat plate barely fitting in the dome. It rotated quite fast, 10 seconds per round. Once Professor Ushio turned on the radar again, we could find some echoes around 50-60 km away, near the maximum range of the radar. The radar image was refreshed amazingly fast, only every 30 seconds.

We are working very hard on using the data from this particular new type of radar most effectively and efficiently, and try to improve the very short-range weather forecasts through "Big Data Assimilation" innovations. Observing the actual radar that we are working on really helped enhance our motivation. What Professor Ushio was saying on TV "Yume-no-tobira" (meaning "Door to Dream") echoed over in our mind: "we just work hard, faithfully and honestly."

Weather station POTEKA II installed at AICS

On June 30, 2014, in collaboration with Meisei Electric, a surface weather station "POTEKA II" developed by Meisei Electric has been installed on the roof of the AICS building, Kobe, Japan. POTEKA II includes a barometer, thermometer, hygrometer, ultrasonic anemometer (the white thing in the middle of the picture), and rain gauge (the black thing on the right). In the picture, we can also find the Kobe Airport island (top left corner). POTEKA II measures these weather variables every 30 seconds and automatically reports to the Meisei server through a commercial mobile phone network. We have also installed the same type of weather stations at seven elementary schools in Kobe. We will investigate how these high-density, high-frequency surface weather measurements could possibly help improve the local severe weather prediction using the K computer.