MEXT Minister Prize

On April 15, 2014, I had the honor to receive the Young Scientists' Prize from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). This is the Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/26/04/1346090.htm
http://www.riken.jp/pr/topics/2014/20140415_2/

New team webpage just launched

I am really excited about our new team webpage just launched!
http://data-assimilation.jp/

Dr. Hazuki Arakida is in charge of the team www and did a great job of creating the fancy webpage. Thank you, Arakida-san!

Professor Norihiko Sugimoto visited RIKEN/AICS

On March 25, 2014, Professor Norihiko Sugimoto from Keio University visited my lab in Kobe. Professor Sugimoto is my long-time friend from College, since we were in the same program in the physics department at Kyoto University. Professor Sugimoto visited us just before his departure for Paris to spend two years in Ecole Polytechnique. We had a lot of discussions about research and other things. We also enjoyed observing the K computer. Wish him a fruitful stay in Paris and the very best of his success!

Professor Brian Hunt visited Kobe

On March 18, 2014, Professor Brian Hunt of the University of Maryland visited my lab in Kobe. The group photo with the K computer includes Professor Hunt (third from left), me (fourth from right) and lab members. Professor Hunt is well known for the Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter (Hunt et al. 2007, Physica D) developed at the University of Maryland, Weather-Chaos group. Professor Hunt is a math professor and one of the founding members of the interdisciplinary Weather-Chaos group. We had very fruitful discussions of our recent progress on data assimilation research. After our meeting in the afternoon, Professor Hunt and I headed to Kyoto to attend a workshop on Math-Meteorology collaboration and Big Data Assimilation in Meteorology. This workshop was also the second RIKEN-Kyoto University joint workshop on data assimilation, and I will describe it sometime soon.

Farewell lunch for Dr. Juan Ruiz

On March 6, 2014, we had a joyful farewell lunch at Kachoen for Dr. Juan Ruiz with a lot of smiles! Juan's second visit to our lab for a month this time has been very successful as always. He has been making amazing progress on the quality control and observation operator for Phased Array Weather Radar and Doppler Lidar observations. I am hoping that we will be ready sometime soon to publicize these wonderful achievements.

Team Logo!

We are very excited about our new team logo of the Data Assimilation Research Team. Dr. Hazuki Arakida is in charge of the team webpage and designed the team logo. The circle on top right and the square at bottom left are merging (assimilating?). The bright red square/circle is my idea, adding a good spice to the logo (in my opinion).

My comments in the top news of Kobe local newspaper

On February 12, 2014, the top news of the Kobe local newspaper reports the Phased Array Weather Radar being built in the western part of Kobe city. The radar will start observing the 3-dimensional structure of rain particles and their motions in the air by the end of March, 2014. The article includes my comments on the innovative aspect and potential utility of the new-type weather radar in numerical weather prediction.

Here is the link to the news article (sorry, only in Japanese!)

http://www.kobe-np.co.jp/news/bousai/201402/0006701977.shtml