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Climate Variability Study and Societal Application through Indonesia - Japan "Maritime Continent COE" - Radar-Buoy Network Optimization for Rainfall Prediction

Environment / Energy (Climate Change)

Republic of Indonesia

Terminated

Climate Variability Study and Societal Application through Indonesia - Japan "Maritime Continent COE" - Radar-Buoy Network Optimization for Rainfall Prediction

Islands and Seas of Indonesian “Maritime Continent” Control Global Climate

Principal Investigator

- Dr.
  YAMANAKA Manabu
  Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)

ODA Recipient Country

Republic of Indonesia

Research Institutions in Japan

Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) / Kyoto University / Kobe University

Research Institutions in Counterpart Country

Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) / Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG) / National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN)

Adoption fiscal year

FY 2009

Research Period

5 Years

Overview of the Research Project

Diagnosis of the heart of global atmospheric circulation - seas and rains of Indonesian "maritime continent"
The Indonesian Archipelago controls warm water flowing from the Pacific Ocean towards the Indian Ocean, generating the most active clouds on the earth, which act as the "heart" pumping global atmospheric circulation. Enhancing capacity to make a "diagnosis" of this heart - the seas and rains of Indonesia - makes it possible to improve the accuracy of climate predictions for the whole world. For Indonesia, the improvements of observation and prediction also contribute to mitigating flooding and drought damage and to policymaking in order to achieve climate-adapted social infrastructure and industrial development.

Optimizing land- and sea-based observations to address global climate change, protecting both Japanese and Indonesian people
This project has created an observation network for climate on both land and sea, including radar monitoring of rainclouds and development of buoys for measuring marine climate and seawater temperature, as well as transferring technology to Indonesia. Optimizing the observation network over the Indonesian maritime continent, which holds the key to understanding and predicting fluctuations in global climate, is contributing to the safety of the Indonesian people and of around a quarter of a million Japanese tourists and businessmen in Indonesia, by for instance, revealing the meteorological causes of the January 2013 Jakarta flood, and is boosting Indonesia's credentials as a leading country in the area of climate variability study.

Photo gallery

TRITON (TRIangle Trans-Ocean buoy Network), developed by Japan, is used by Indonesian technicians.

TRITON buoy on board an Indonesian research vessel. Similar training and cutting-edge observations are underway for land-based radar as well, greatly improving the accuracy of observations on both land and sea.