[Press Release] Improving detection accuracy of incoming Asian dust (Kosa)

Monitoring incoming particulate matters such as Asian dust (Kosa in Japanese) is essential to keep us healthy. On 7 March 2016, the Terra/MODIS true color image clearly captured a yellow band over Hokkaido, Japan. On the same day, however, the Japan Meteorological Agency reported no Kosa event in Japan. An international research team that includes Assist. Prof. Sumito Matoba (Division of Earth System Science) investigated whether this event was due to Kosa transport or not, with the ground-based observations in Sapporo and Takikawa, Hokkaido and NASA’s MERRA-2 re-analysis data. This research outcome is published in Scientific Online Letters on the Atmosphere (SOLA), a letter journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan.

Please visit links below to view the press release (Japanese ver. only).
Research Press Release (PDF)