thefunkydrummer 0 Posted March 3, 2006 Share Posted March 3, 2006 Does anyone know where I could get some detailed scientific info about why japan recieves so much snow? I'm looking for indepth info - not just "cold air from siberia picks up moisture over the sea of japan...". Any help appreciated Link to post Share on other sites
mattlucas 0 Posted March 3, 2006 Share Posted March 3, 2006 Quote: "cold air from siberia picks up moisture over the sea of japan...". I heard this from somewhere Not too sure where though Sounds good to me though Link to post Share on other sites
sava 0 Posted March 3, 2006 Share Posted March 3, 2006 thefunkydrummer : do you know much about weather modeling ? Link to post Share on other sites
thefunkydrummer 0 Posted March 6, 2006 Author Share Posted March 6, 2006 No I don't - pray tell... Link to post Share on other sites
Yuki's Passion 1 Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 >Does anyone know where I could get some detailed scientific info about why japan recieves so much snow? Nihonjinron - its because its Japan and Japan is so much different than all the other countries in the world Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 I'm interested too, thefunkydrummer. If I find anything, I'll post it here. Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 There are two parts to the equation, the atmosphere and the sea, so I did a search on "japan sea temperature", and turned up this: http://www.whoi.edu/science/PO/japan_sea/ Woods Hole are on the case, and inevitably, the US Navy. They had a plane out sampling the atmosphere, and a ship in the water. That's what I call a research budget There is a cold northern water body which meets a warmer southern body at the subpolar front. Low pressure systems spawn on this front, and track NW along it, pulling in cold air behind from the Siberian High. This air channels in over Vladivostock between the Russian and Korean mountains. By giving up heat to the cold air, the southern water mass cools, the water masses mix, and they sink. Reducing the temperature difference also turns off the system spawning the lows, a negative feedback. It is quite possible that the volume of snow received is therefore limited by the amount of heat in store at the start each winter. It's worth working through the abstracts at the bottom of the report. Link to post Share on other sites
bushpig 0 Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 Quote: Originally posted by soubriquet: It is quite possible that the volume of snow received is therefore limited by the amount of heat in store at the start each winter. Interesting thought that... Link to post Share on other sites
guzzlers-baps 0 Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 I'm good at hair tech but not this. Sounds interesting though Link to post Share on other sites
RockyV 0 Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 as an engineer (mining if anyone is interested) I'm interested to know myself, as we all know it has nothing to do with the temperature, there are many places across the globe consistantly much colder than Japan but Japan wins in terms of snowfall volume. sorry I can not help, but please post your results when you find out. most gaijin in Japan studdied humanities so most probably aren't as interested, but I'm very interested. (not in any way an insult, just that people from different areas of study generally have different points of view) Link to post Share on other sites
gamera 0 Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 I hear Himaraya also causes. Usually at this latitude, a lot of places are most likely desert or steppe. But Himaraya keeps providing moist and cold air and the windblow brings it to Japan direction. Link to post Share on other sites
veronica 2 Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 Don't the Himalayas have an effect on pretty much the whole world. It's all very interesting anyway. Link to post Share on other sites
bushpig 0 Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 Quote: Originally posted by RockyV: most gaijin in Japan studdied humanities so most probably aren't as interested, but I'm very interested. (not in any way an insult, just that people from different areas of study generally have different points of view) I studied humanities RockyV, but that doesn't limit my interest. In fact I am keen to see the results of this too. Choosing humanities over say engineering for me wasn't a case of not liking one, but more a case of which one I liked more. Would love to have been able to study more in the sciences, but chose the other path Link to post Share on other sites
akibun 0 Posted March 26, 2006 Share Posted March 26, 2006 Bushpig, can I ask what kind of thing you study in "humanities"? Link to post Share on other sites
bushpig 0 Posted March 26, 2006 Share Posted March 26, 2006 Majored in French and Japanese and minored in Asian Studies and Japanese Studies. Link to post Share on other sites
woywoy 0 Posted March 26, 2006 Share Posted March 26, 2006 Which uni was that at Bushy? I did a major in Asian Studies and Japanese too! Link to post Share on other sites
akibun 0 Posted March 26, 2006 Share Posted March 26, 2006 So humanities is like language studies? Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 I've been doing a little digging around, and come up with some data. This image is sea surface temperature (SST) for October 20-27 2004. The colour coding is: magenta (0C), blue (6C), cyan (12C) and green (17C). It shows southern part of the Sea of Japan with a surface temperature of around 17C. By late February, most of the Sea of Japan is at 0C, with just the southern margin at between 6 and 12C. source: NOAA, NASA, JPL http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/navoceano_mcsst/newnavoceano_browse.pl If we look at the sub-surface, we see that last Friday, pretty much the whole of the Sea of Japan below 200m was 0-1C. Nicely illustrated by a S-N section. source: US Navy Naval Research Laboratory. http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/altimetry/regions/reg_soj.html It would be very easy to calculate the amount of heat lost, and convert that into volume of snow, but someone would have to pay me to do it. Regardless, it is clear that the cooling of the surface layer will reduce the potential to both generate low pressure systems, and to evaporate sea water. If we look at the full SST plots (I'll switch to thumbnails, because this will blow the page format) we can take this a little further. We are looking for somewhere where arctic air masses depart the high latitude continents (so it will have to be an east coast) and cross a warm sea before striking land. There's only one candidate. When you also take into consideration the effect of the coastal mountain ranges concentrating the air flow into a focused blast rather than simply rolling diffusely off the continental edge, I think it reasonable to propose that some aspects of the Japanese climate are unique to Japan. Link to post Share on other sites
bushpig 0 Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 Woah! Soub, this is obviously close to or in your field?? Akibun, Humanities is a very broad term for a wide variety of things like languages, literature, philosophy, history, economics, etc., etc. In Japanese it is probably closest to 文系 as opposed to 理系. Make sense? Most disciplines fall into the two very broad categories of humanities or sciences. NPM, UWA. You? Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 You've asked the question Bushpig, so I'll ask for your indulgence and try to be brief. My area is sedimentary geology. Sedimentologists iterate between the past and the present. We study the processes and products of current "environments" (river, delta, desert...) in order to interpret the records preserved in sediments and sedimentary rocks. A major control on all Earth-surface processes is climate. To that extent climatology is in my field, but only as an enabling science. In 1995, I was employed by the CSIRO to make a study of the landscape of The Pilbara on behalf of an iron mining company. I had a $250,000 budget. They gave me a nice shiny one of these. For the really hard to get to places, I could call up this. The Pilbara landscape looks like this in winter. It looks like this in summer (40C+ and 90% humidity + sweatflies). The presentation went well, with enough brass to make it seem like something out of MASH The result. They were looking for a sedimentologist to lead them to a hole in the ground. I was pointing to the tops of the hills and saying this where where your iron ore came from. They believed me, and closed their detrital iron exploration group. My continuation funding ceased immediately. Professional suicide. Link to post Share on other sites
scouser 4 Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 Its all very interesting, but you lost me somewhere around this part "sedimentary geology" Where is The Pilbara? Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 It's NW Western Australia, where all the iron ore comes from. Sorry scouser, we study the present to understand the past. What processes could have made this deposit form? That kind of stuff. Link to post Share on other sites
bushpig 0 Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 Wow Soub! You lucky bugger to get to poke around up there (sorry, up is habit!) for work. That area of Northern WA is one of my favourite regions on the planet! Link to post Share on other sites
frannyo 2 Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 That does sound interesting. Are you doing that kind of work now soubs? Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 Nope. Without any project continuation, I was a long way out on a funding limb. I got to do a lot of interesting stuff around Australia, but when the budget cycle ended, I got the chop. I've tried pretty hard, but palaeoenvironmental reconstruction is a pretty hard trick to sell. Although it would be nice to still have the career, I am thankful to have had the opportunity. Now I live in Yamagata, surrounded by mountains and snow. I'm grateful for that opportunity too. Japan has a fantastically dynamic landscape. It's Nirvana. Link to post Share on other sites
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