This project aims to develop meteorological control theory that will enable small external forces to significantly change the weather. In addition, we also pursue the ability to precisely forecast a wide variety of impacts of meteorological disasters on society, which is necessary for social decision-making regarding weather control. By 2050, we aim to be able to control weather-society coupling systems based on democratic social decision-making processes in order to free the world from the fear of meteorological disasters.

This project aims to develop principles and fundamental techniques to diminish typhoons, which are expected to become increasingly severe with climate change, to the level that disaster prevention infrastructure becomes effective. To this end, we will establish typhoon control theory through high-precision observations by aircraft, ships and satellites, and the development of numerical models that reproduce the inner workings of typhoons. Furthermore, we will conduct disaster forecasting and impact assessment, and tackle the issues of social acceptability and consensus-building for typhoon control. By 2050, we will realize a society of safety and that is free from the threat of typhoons.

This project aims to control the intensity of “guerrilla heavy rainfall” and “line-shaped convective heavy rainfall”. Based on numerical meteorological models, field observations, and laboratory experiments, we will develop multiple control devices. We will construct a control system that considers the impact assessment and social accountability of heavy rainfall control, by using those devices at multiple points in time and in multiple phases. By 2050, we will contribute to the formation of a future society in which heavy rainfall control technologies integrate with nature and human society.

This project aims to develop a weather control technology that mitigates heavy-rainfall-induced economic damages by artificially generating heavy rain over the upstream ocean. Given the limitations of directly altering the atmosphere, we explore a weather control method for intentional generation of heavy rains with optimization of manipulations. We will also promote social science research on legal issues and environmental risk assessments in order to accelerate the practical application of our results. By 2050, we aim to establish a weather control technology that society can accept.

To realize weather control, highly accurate weather forecasting is essential. In particular, for controlling typhoons, there are two bottlenecks: (1) low accuracy of typhoon intensity predictions; (2) difficulty of distinguishing natural and control effects. This project aims to solve these bottlenecks by investigating the mechanism of momentum and heat transfer across the sea surface under typhoons, and formulating the momentum and heat fluxes using parameters associated with wave-breaking and wind waves through a large laboratory experiment for simulating typhoons.

To realize weather control, we must solve a bottleneck to determining the optimal control method: that it is difficult to accurately estimate the probability associated with properties of local atmospheric phenomena, such as location, time, intensity. This project aims to develop an atmospheric simulation model suitable for this estimation which solves several problems inherent to current atmospheric simulation models, developing new computation schemes that are qualitatively different from conventional ones.

To realize weather control, we need to solve the bottleneck that the positions for actuators to maximize weather control effects are unknown. This project aims to organize, develop and evaluate actuator position optimization methods. We will show through weather simulation experiments that the obtained actuator positions can be used to improve control effects.

To realize weather control, nature needs to be continuously monitored. For typhoons it is important to continuously monitor the marine atmosphere and ocean surface layer near the typhoon center, which play important roles in the typhoon development process. However, it is difficult to conduct this monitoring via aircraft or satellites, which means it is a bottleneck for weather control. This project aims to develop unmanned maritime vehicles that can be virtually moored near the area of a typhoon center and continuously observe the atmosphere-ocean data along the movement path of the typhoon.

To achieve weather control, we need to enable discussions on a bottleneck for decision-making: the way to maximize the effect of control. To quantify weather controllability, this project investigates meteorological landscapes that separate disaster and non-disaster regimes which can be controlled by small operations through deep learning applied to historical disaster events. We also estimate economical damage and impacted populations throughout Japan under non-controlled/controlled scenarios, in order to quantify avoidable damage by the weather control.