Winter atmospheric conditions over the Japan/East Sea: The structure and impact of severe cold-air outbreaks

The Japan/East Sea is a marginal sea strategically placed between the world’s largest land mass and the world’s largest ocean. The Eurasian land mass extending to high latitudes generates several unique winter synoptic weather features, the most notable being the vast Siberian Anticyclone that covers much of the northeast Asian land mass. The Japan/East Sea’s very distinctive winter conditions result from being on the east side of the Eurasian landmass at mid-latitudes. The resulting winter atmospheric conditions over the Sea include the mean cold air flowing off Siberia that is occasionally spiked with severe very-cold-air outbreaks. In the winter of 1999–2000, a group of Russian, Korean, Japanese, and American scientists conducted an international program to investigate the oceanography of the Japan/East Sea and its surface forcing. During this program, we made atmospheric observations with a research aircraft and ships to understand the lower atmosphere and surface air-sea fl uxes. We report here several highlights of these investigations with a focus on the dramatic severe cold-air outbreaks that occur three to five times a winter month. We start with a refresher on the physical setting and the winter mean and synoptic conditions, then describe the marine boundary layer and air-sea interaction based on research aircraft and ship measurements, and conclude with numerical model simulations that illustrate the special role of coastal topography on the surface wind fi eld and air-sea fl uxes over the Japan/East Sea

UNOLS establishes SCOAR to promote research aircraft facilities for U.S. ocean sciences

The ocean sciences community is currently engaged in the process of defining new facilities that will support oceanographic research, education, and monitoring efforts for the next several decades. New research vessels, drilling ships, coastal and deep-ocean observing systems, satellites, and submersibles will be designed to increase ocean access in terms of geographical coverage, depth, temporal continuity, and resolution of events. Aircraft may be largely overlooked facilities that are capable of providing observations and data in ways that satisfy many research goals, and they should be considered an important component in the future mix of oceanographic facilities