Climate Exchange

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led local agricultural organizations in Japan’s northern Tohoku

region to provide local farmers with guidance in relation to an

extremely high-temperature event in April 2008. The Sendai

District Meteorological Observatory responsible for the Tohoku

region issued successive EWIEW on high local temperatures on 8,

11, 15, 22 and 25 April 2008, advising attention to farm product

management. In response to the EWIEW issued on 8 April, the

Aomori Prefectural Government in Tohoku issued special informa-

tion for agricultural production on 11 April calling for frequent

ventilation in greenhouses to avoid poor germination of rice crops,

vegetables, flowers and ornamental plants due to soaring tempera-

tures. The prefectural governments of Akita, Miyagi and Yamagata

in Tohoku also called for similar measures against predicted high

temperatures. Farmers use such special information to implement

appropriate field-crop management techniques as necessary.

EWIEW is also efficiently used in the health sector. When very

high temperatures are predicted and EWIEW is issued, relevant

local governments inform the public of the increased potential risk

of heatstroke as well as efficient countermeasures to be taken. As

heatstroke can be prevented by appropriate behaviour, such caution

is considered highly effective and important. Schoolteachers also

use EWIEW to give appropriate guidance to pupils.

Future issues

In the last four years since JMA started providing EWIEW opera-

tionally, a number of governmental agricultural organizations in

Japan have leveraged the information in their activities to provide

farmers with agricultural technical guidance. JMA also promotes

the use of EWIEW in other sectors, and operators

in various fields are expected to use the probabilis-

tic prediction products provided on the JMA website

in their climate risk reduction activities. An example

of this may be the use of the information in creating

plans for sales of commodities, which are sensitive to

climate conditions. CPFs and PDFs are expected to

support next-generation forecasting that will advise

users of the probability of temperatures moving above

or below their self-set threshold values.

JMA is currently working to address four major chal-

lenges regarding EWIEW:

Dissemination of EWIEW and strengthening of related

interpretive activities

EWIEW is not yet widely known in Japan. As many

potential users may be able to make good use of

such information in their decision-making activities,

JMA is seeking and exploring further opportunities

for dialogue with such users in order to interpret the

characteristics and usage of EWIEW. The provision

of briefings to broadcasting-organization meteorolo-

gists and members of the press is also important. Such

activities are expected to support the dissemination of

EWIEW in Japan.

Addition of more meteorological elements to EWIEW

To complement the temperature information already

provided, JMA is currently considering the addition

of other meteorological elements as targets of predic-

tion. In terms of prediction skill and the impact of

such information on society, JMA plans to add data

on expected snowfall for the Sea of Japan side of the

country in winter.

Improvement of prediction techniques

To support better prediction of extreme events with

greater accuracy, there is a need to develop and improve

prediction tools and techniques such as the numerical

atmospheric model and ensemble prediction tech-

niques, application methods including calibration of

numerical prediction results based on hindcast experi-

ments, and approaches to downscaling.

Provision of seamless weather/climate information

to users

Seamless information on weather and the climate will

help users to prepare and take countermeasures using

EWIEW in combination with analysis of current climate

conditions and weekly forecasts.

In response to these challenges, JMA engages in

activities in collaboration with research organiza-

tions on the user side with the aim of producing

user-friendly climate information that supports deci-

sion-making. One such activity is a pilot project to

promote the use of climate information in the agri-

cultural sector in collaboration with Japan’s National

Agriculture and Food Research Organization Tohoku

Agricultural Research Center.

Cumulative probability function (CPF) and probability density function

(PDF) of predicted T7d anomalies for 4-10 August 2010, issued on 30

July for Tokyo. The horizontal axis shows the T7d anomaly. The blue and

green lines show the CPF and PDF for the prediction, while the yellow

and pink lines show those for the occurrence of climatology values. Users

can change the critical value (the light-blue line) on the website to see

the cumulative probability applicable to the area shaded in light blue

(originally in Japanese)

Source: JMA