International Symposium on Data Assimilation 2015

International Symposium on Data Assimilation (ISDA) 2015 was held in RIKEN AICS, Kobe, Japan, on February 23-27, 2015. Total 116 participants include 42 from 10 countries overseas. The symposium was very successful with a lot of interesting talks and active discussions, thanks to all the participants!

The bottom photo includes local organizers from my team. Congratulations to Dr. Keiichi Kondo (front middle), who received the Best Poster Award! Ms. Yukie Komori (left) is greatly acknowledged for her dedicated work leading the symposium to a great success.

BTW, I should have posted this earlier!

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.

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."

RIKEN Science Seminar VII in Kobe

On Wednesday, January 29, 2014, the RIKEN Science Seminar VII, an outreach event organized by RIKEN, took place at the Kobe International House. Hana-san, our featured guest, Kawai-san of RIKEN HQ, and I (Takemasa Miyoshi) enjoyed talking in front of more than 100 audiences about our cutting-edge research on future weather forecasting. Hana-san was keen to learn how the current weather forecasting works, and whether or not we can have 100% accurate forecasts in the future. I showed weather charts of the day and demonstrated how to read them to understand the tomorrow's weather forecast. Also, I talked about how we obtain these weather charts in real time, and what we could do in the future with more powerful computers and more advanced weather observing instruments. I hope that we could convey our scientific excitement to the enthusiastic audiences. Thank you very much for those who joined the enjoyable event, and the staff who kindly helped organize.

http://www.riken.jp/pr/blog/2014/140218_1/

RIKEN-Kyoto University Joint Workshop on Data Assimilation

On August 9, 2013, we had the first RIKEN-Kyoto University Joint Workshop on Data Assimilation in RIKEN AICS, Kobe, Japan. The workshop webpage is available only in Japanese, since we intended to exchange ideas among Japanese scientists in both sides.

Data assimilation requires interdisciplinary developments based on statistics and applied mathematics, and it is essential to make a productive collaboration between mathematicians and scientists in application fields. Fortunately, I got to know Professor Sakajo a few years ago in Sapporo, and since then we have been exchanging ideas. Recently I moved from Maryland to Kobe, and Professor Sakajo also moved from Sapporo to Kyoto. We now have this geographical advantage, and try to make our collaborations more active and productive. This is the first workshop to have mathematicians from Professor Sakajo's group and scientists in my group get together, exchange ideas and have active discussions.

We are planning the second workshop in Kyoto in March 18-20, with a prestigious invited speaker Professor Brian Hunt from the University of Maryland.

AICS International Workshop on Data Assimilation

AICS International Workshop on Data Assimilation took place at RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS), Kobe, Japan on February 26-27, 2013. We had total 48 enthusiastic and serious participants from many parts of Japan and other countries including the US, Germany, Taiwan, Korea, and Argentina. Following the opening address by the AICS Director Professor Kimihiko Hirao, Professor Eugenia Kalnay of the University of Maryland presented the wonderful Keynote. We had full of exciting, thought-provoking talks during 1.5 days, with several very interesting posters. I was very happy and rewarded to hear that many attendees expressed how they enjoyed the workshop.

I would like to acknowledge the science committee composed of distinguished scientists Drs. Tadashi Tsuyuki, Nobumasa Komori, Takeshi Enomoto, Toshiki Iwasaki, and myself. I would also like to thank Keiichi Kondo, Shigenori Otsuka, Juan Ruiz, and Yukiko Hayakawa who helped the planning and organization of the workshop. Finally and most importantly, enthusiasm and cooperation of all of the participants was crucial for the success of this workshop. I would like to thank everyone who helped make this workshop most successful and fruitful.

Visited the National Youth Science Camp (NYSC) for the first time in 16 years

The wonderful one-month summer experience in Blue Ridge mountains some 16 years ago is something unforgettable in my life. During July 8-12, I visited the National Youth Science Camp (NYSC), Pocahontas County, WV, for the first time in 16 years, as a guest lecturer this time. I gave a directed study on Weather Forecasting, and a lecture on numerical weather prediction, chaos and predictability.

What amazed me is that nothing has changed at the camp. The cabins, green, ping-pong tables, dining hall, rec hall, camp store, pay phones, and bathroom with full of bugs. The enthusiastic and energetic delegates. Some were running around, playing balls and frisbees, others were sitting or lying quietly on the green, reading books. I remember I liked to write journals on the green. Good that I lost the journal, so that I don't remember what stupid things I wrote. During the 4-day visit, details that I already forgot started to come back in my mind, very gradually. What amazed me was that everything I remembered looked the same 16 years ago, such as the face on the tree in front of the dining hall. First I could not remember whether or not the face was there, but gradually, I got the memory back.

This was a very interesting experience for me, visiting my first place in the US, where I had only vague memories in my youth. I was one of the energetic delegates 16 years ago, just as the ones there in front of me, being curious and enthusiastic about unknown science fields. I wonder how I grew from that time. I have more knowledge about the narrow field of my expertise, but I believe I have the same curiosity and enthusiasm about knowing what is unknown, exploring something never explored previously. I hope I entertained the delegates with my lecture, and was able to convey the joy of scientific exploration, at least to some extent.