Marine Ecosystems Research Department - jamstec japan agency ...

JAMSTEC 2002 Annual Report
Frontier Research System for Global Change
between the older instruments and the modern instruments.
The results of the intercomparison will be used
to improve the -year database of direct, diffuse, and
global radiation under a wide range of synoptic weather
conditions. The global balance of atmospheric CO is
far from equilibrium. The characteristic exchange time
within the atmosphere/ocean/geosphere/biosphere system
is estimated at years. A portion of this
exchange takes place in the Arctic marginal seas, even
in the present of an ice cover. Scientists from the
physics group, together with chemists from the US-
IARC program and researchers from Cold Regions
Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), are
investigating the flux of atmospheric CO at the surface
of fast ice. Deal and colleagues have chosen the Bering
and Chukchi Seas as the domain of the ice-oceanecosystem
model they are developing. They will use
this model to improve understanding of how physical
factors (such as retreating sea ice, local climate change)
and biogeochemical changes (such as nutrient levels)
may influence phytoplankton and zooplankton dynamics
and thus DMS dynamics.
Research Project for Sustainable Coexistence
of Human, Nature, and the Earth
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and
Technology (MEXT) started new strategies to promote
science and technology. The above project is included
in the area of "Environment" as larger new initiative of
the MEXT named "Research Revolution
(RR)". The period of the Project is years starting
from Fiscal Year . Among seven subjects of the
Project, FRSGC is responsible in carrying out the
whole or part of the following three subjects.
Subject 1: Future Climate Change Projection using
a High-Resolution Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere
Climate Model
The aim of this project is to conduct a series of
future climate change projection experiments using a
high-resolution coupled ocean-atmosphere climate
model on the Earth Simulator, for reducing and understanding
the uncertainty of the projection. The project
team consists of members of Center for Climate
System Research of the University of Tokyo (CCSR),
National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES),
and Frontier Research System for Global Change
(FRSGC), and directed by Prof. Sumi of CCSR. The
climate model used is called MIROC and has been collaboratively
developed by CCSR, NIES and FRSGC.
The project includes the following four subjects:
. Development of a high-resolution coupled oceanatmosphere
climate model
. Designing future climate change projection experiments
based on IPCC SRES scenarios
. Development of component models for the climate
model
. Advancing the climate model of Hadley Centre, UK
Since the members of FRSGC are, in principle,
involved in the first subject, the activity of only that
part is introduced below.
Sub Group for the Development of a High-Resolution
Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Climate Model
For the high-resolution future climate change projection,
we have targeted the following spatial resolution
of the model:
T spectral truncation (approximately .˚) in
horizontal and levels in vertical for the atmospheric
part
.˚ x .˚ in horizontal and levels in vertical
for the oceanic and sea-ice part
With this atmospheric resolution, regional-scale climatic
features such as Baiu front and tropical cyclones
can be represented. The oceanic resolution should be
higher so that the model can reproduce realistic temporal
variation of sea-surface height and the complex
ocean current system in the northern North Atlantic
and the Arctic Oceans, which is critically important to
reproduce the North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW)
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