CIC NEWSLETTER

No.13

2015

th
Celebration of the 20 anniversaryof the Center for International Collaboration

Contents

Mitsuo UEMATSU

Professor and Director, Center for International Collaboration

2

5

8

11

T

he Center for International Cooperation was established for thepromotion of international cooperation in marine sciences in 1994.
In 2010, the Center for International Cooperation was reorganized
and renamed the Center for International Collaboration (CIC) .
On March 3rd, 2015, the 20th anniversary commemoration ceremony for
the Center for International Collaboration was held at the AORI auditorium
with over 70 attendees. After the opening address by Dr. Hiroshi NIINO(Director of AORI), congratulatory addresses were given by Dr. Masashi
HANEDA (Vice president of UTokyo), Mr. Masashi AKIBA (Secretariat ofCulture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister), Mr. Hisashi KATO
(Manager of International Division, Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science), and Dr. Keisuke TAIRA (Former director of AORI).
Subsequently, Memorial Lectures were given regarding international
activities in the Republic of Korea by Dr. Gi-hoon HONG (President of
KIOST: Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology); contributionsof Asian countries to Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC)
activities by Dr. Sang-Kyung BYUN (Chairperson of UNESCO/IOC); andwhat WESTPAC wishes for Japan with respect to international exchanges
and contributions, including capacity development and research, by Dr.
Somkiat KHOKIATTIWONG (Chairperson of IOC/WESTPAC:
Sub-Commission for the Western Pacific). Although Prof. Gordon GRAU
(Former Chairperson, External Evaluation Committee of AORI, Universityof Hawaii) was not able to attend the ceremony, Prof. Yoshio TAKEI readhis message, which implored the importance of international collaborative
research with AORI.
We have received a number of valuable opinions, pieces of advice, andexpectations regarding the future of our Center. We would like to extend
our gratitude to everyone who has supported our activities for many years.

1.

Celebration of the 20th anniversaryof the CIC

2.

Prof. Michida awarded
National Maritime Award

3.

Activities related to the IOC

4.

International Training Workshop:“Marine Zooplankton Photography”

5.

The 5th International Symposium of
Oryzias Fish in Thailand and theOryzias Fish workshop in Indonesia

6.

Agreement of Academic Exchange
between AORI and the Bjerknes
Center for Climate Research

7.

Renovating our partnership with
Scripps Institution of Oceanography

8.

University of Tokyo and University of
Hawaii the 3rd Joint Symposium

the

8th

Joint symposium between
UTokyo-AORI and IONTU

Congratulatory address by Mr. Hisashi KATO who
supported the establishment of the JSPS Coastal
Marine Science program

Lecture given by Dr. Gi-hoon HONG
(President of KIOST)

9.

A new international research
initiative, SIMSEA, launched under
Future Earth

10.

PALSEA2 2015 Workshop

11.

Russia-Japan Joint Workshop

12.

Visit of the Norwegian Minister ofFisheries

13.

Visiting Professors
Visiting professors’ reports

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CIC NEWSLETTER

No.13 2015

Prof. Michida awarded the
8th National Maritime Award
Yutaka MICHIDA

Professor, Center for International CollaborationProf. Yutaka Michida was awarded the 8th National Maritime
Award in July 2015. He was one of eight awardees. The
government of Japan established this award in 2008, in
response to the Basic Act on Ocean Policy adopted in 2007, to honor
individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievements in promoting ocean-related
activities. The contributions of Prof. Michida were described as ‘raising the international position ofJapan in the field of the ocean.’ He served as a vice-chair of the IOC from 2011–2015. He was thesecond Japanese oceanographer elected to this position during the 50-year history of the IOC,
following the election of the late Professor Ken Sugawara 40 years ago. He has also been serving as
one of the co-chairs of the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE)
since March 2015 and is the first oceanographer from an Asian member state to take this position.
The award ceremony was held at the Prime Minister’s official residence on July 16, 2015.

Prof. Michida (second from the left on the front row) at the award ceremony for the 8th National Maritime Award at the Prime Minister's
official residence on July 16, 2015

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CIC NEWSLETTER

No.13 2015

Intergovernmental Oceanographic
Commission (IOC)Activities Related to the

Yutaka MICHIDA

Professor, Center for International CollaborationT

he 23rd Session of the IOC Committee on International Oceanographic Data and Information
Exchange (IOC/IODE) was held March 17–20, 2015, in Brugge, Belgium. Prof. Yutaka Michidaparticipated in the meeting as a vice-chair of the IOC and led the discussion at a sessional working
group on the restructuring of IODE. The meeting adopted four Decisions and five Recommendations,
including the establishment of an inter-sessional working group on the restructuring of IODE, for which Prof.
Michida would assume responsibility as a co-chair. Prof. Michida was elected as one of the co-chairs of
IODE for the next two years.
The 10th Session of the IOC Sub-Commission for the Western Pacific (WESTPAC) was held May 11–15,
2015, in Phuket, Thailand. Prof. Mitsuo Uematsu, Director of the Center for International Collaboration at
AORI (CIC), participated as the head of the Japanese delegation. Profs. Yutaka Michida and Shuhei Nishidaalso participated in the meeting as members of the delegation. The meeting adopted five recommendations,
including the establishment of the Indo-Pacific Ocean Observations and Services Network (IPON), whichaims to promote regional cooperation in marine sciences at the institutional level.
The 28th Session of the IOC Assembly was held June 17–25, 2015, at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.
Prof. Mitsuo Uematsu, Director of CIC, participated as the head of the Japanese delegation. Prof. Yutaka
Michida and Associate Prof. Teruhisa Komatsu also participated in the meeting as members of the delegation.
Prof. Michida took a leading role in agenda items such as the tsunami programme and oceanographic data andinformation exchange. Prof. Michida’s term as a vice-chair of the Commission was over at the end of theSession according to the rules and procedures of the IOC.
Prof. Michida was also actively involved in a series of IOC-related meetings; the International Tsunami
Symposium commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Pacific Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System, which
was held in Honolulu April 20–21, 2015; and three meetings in January 2016: the WESTPAC Advisory Groupin Yogyakarta, Indonesia; IODE Officers meeting in Oostende, Belgium; and Advisory Group Meeting for
Ocean Data and Information Network in WESTPAC in Tianjin, China.

Prof. Michida (right) and Dr. Cyndy Chandler (left;USA), co-chairs of IODE, co-leading
the agenda on oceanographic data and information management at the 28th Sessionof the IOC Assembly in Paris, June 2015

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CIC NEWSLETTER

International

No.13 2015

Training

Workshop:“Marine Zooplankton Photography”
Shuhei NISHIDA

Professor, Center for International CollaborationA

mong the major activities of the Asian CORE
Program of the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science, the international training
workshop “Marine Zooplankton Photography”,
which aims to enhance the capacity of Malaysian
researchers to obtain and process zooplankton images
for research, education, and outreach, was held at theInstitute of Bioscience, Universiti Putra Malaysia(UPM) on November 23–24, 2015. The workshop wasconvened by Prof. Fatimah M.D. Yusoff (UPM) andProf. Shuhei Nishida (AORI) and sponsored by the
Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia and the Asian
CORE Program. Prof. Jun Nishikawa (Tokai
University) and Dr. Masayoshi Sano (AORI), both
members of the Asian CORE Program, were lecturers.
A total of 17 researchers, including university staff,
graduate students, and researchers from companies

related to environmental research from different
regions of Malaysia, participated in the workshop. On
the morning of Day-1, lectures on the theory andpractice of optics and photography, both macro- andmicroscopic, were presented. Afternoon sessions
followed, with demonstrations (by the lecturers) of
macro- and microscopic photography and picture
processing using live zooplankton samples that werecollected prior to the workshop. Day-2 was devoted topractical photography and picture processing by thetrainees themselves, which were followed bycomments from and evaluation by the lecturers andorganizers. As the workshop came to a close, it wasnoted that this workshop was successful in enhancing
the capacity of zooplankton research and education in
Malaysia.

Opening

Demonstration of photography

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CIC NEWSLETTER

No.13 2015

The 5th International Symposium of

Oryzias Fish in Thailand
and the Oryzias
FishWorkshop in Indonesia
Koji INOUE

Professor, Division of Marine Life Science and Center forInternational Collaboration

M

edaka fishes of the genus Oryzias are widelydistributed in Asia. Most species of thisgenus are small, tough, and expected to be
useful laboratory animals, as has been demonstrated bya representative species, Japanese medaka O. latipes.
Oryzias fishes also offer interesting models forcomparative and ecophysiological studies because eachspecies has a unique habitat and different adaptability
to environmental factors, including temperature andsalinity. However, these sober-colored small fishes are
not popular in Southeast Asia despite the fact that they
are excellent resources for various fields of science.
To promote studies using Oryzias fishes by
sharing accumulated knowledge regarding Japanese
medaka, a group of scientists, including myself, hasbeen organizing biennial international symposia of
Oryzias fishes since 2007. The 5th symposium washeld at Mahasarakham University, Maha Sarakham in
Thailand on November 12−14, 2015. Eighteen papers
were presented during the symposium session, and afield trip to the habitat of Thai medaka O. minutillus
and Mekong medaka O. mekongensis was conducted.
Participants were from Japan, China, and ASEAN
countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Thailand, and Vietnam). The number of participating
countries has increased since the first symposium in
Bangkok, indicating that the network is actually
expanding. I hope that these small fishes will further
enhance cooperation among Asian scientists in the
future. I would like to express sincere thanks to theField trip. Thai scientists kindly showed
the fish to the participants

chairman, Professor Wichian Magtoon, the organizing
committee for their excellent organization of thesymposium, and to CIC for supporting our travel.
In addition to the international symposium, we
also organized a training workshop, “Oryzias Fish
Workshop,” at Hasanuddin University, Makassar,
Indonesia on December 12−–14, 2015. Hasanuddin
University was the venue of the 4th International
Symposium of Oryzias Fish; following the symposium,the “Medaka Research Centre” was established in theuniversity. During this workshop, three Japanesescientists (Dr. Masato Kinoshita of Kyoto University,
Dr. Yusuke Takehana of National Institute for Basic
Biology, and myself) visited the university andinstructed nine participants, including students andresearchers, in species identification methods using
DNA and the basic techniques required for genome
editing experiments using the CRISPR/Cas9 system.
We hope that the basic and applied techniques
introduced in the workshop will help the developmentof science in Indonesia in the future. I would like toexpress our thanks to Dr. Irma Andriani who
coordinated the workshop and to the staff and students
of Hasanuddin University. The travel for Japanesescientists was supported by the Bilateral Joint Research
Projects between JSPS and LIPI. The workshop was
alsoreported
ina
local
newspaper(http://makassar.tribunnews.com/2015/12/02/ikan-med
aka-bagus-dijadikan-hewan-laboratorium).

Teaching egg handling

Symposium participants

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CIC NEWSLETTER

No.13 2015

AORI and the Bjerknes
Centre for Climate Research, University of Bergen
Agreement of Academic Exchange between

Wataru YANASE

Assistant Professor, Division of Ocean-Earth System SciencePolar climate and weather are drawing increasing
attention from various perspectives. A polar
climate system, including atmosphere, ocean,sea ice, and ice sheets, is closely linked to global
climate change. On a daily time scale, intense maritime
cyclones called polar lows cause heavy snowfall andmarine disasters in the polar regions. Polar lows also
develop around Japan during winter. To strengthenpolar studies, AORI made an agreement of academic
exchange with the Bjerknes Centre for Climate
Research (BCCR) on May 25, 2015. BCCR is thelargest climate research center in the Nordic countries
and comprises four major institutions conducting
climate research in Bergen, Norway, including the
University of Bergen.
The agreement will promote two existing researchcollaborations between AORI and BCCR. Dr. Ayako
Abe-Ouchi has collaborated with Dr. Eystein Jansen
and Dr. Kerim Nisancioglu on climate systemmodeling focused on the polar regions. Dr. Hiroshi
Niino and Dr. Wataru Yanase have collaborated with
Dr. Thomas Spengler on comparative studies of polarlows over the Sea of Japan and the Nordic Seas. These
collaborations will develop into a new project,“Partnership between Norway and Japan for excellent
Education and Research in Weather and Climate
Dynamics (NORPAN),” in March 2016 and will befunded by the Research Council of Norway. It is also
expected that the agreement will stimulate further
collaboration with Norwegian institutions in a wide
range of fields, such as oceanography and fisheries.

A group photo with Dr. Anne Christine Johannessen,the Vice Rector of the University of Bergen (third from the right in the frontrow); Mr. Erling Rimestad, the Norwegian ambassador (the rightmost in the front row); and the Norwegian delegation at thesigning ceremony at AORI on May 25,2015

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CIC NEWSLETTER

No.13 2015

Renovating partnershipwith Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Koji HAMASAKI

Associate Professor, Division of Marine Life ScienceA

ORI has just started a new partnershipprogram with Scripps Institution of
Oceanography (SIO) since this fiscal year.
This program is selected as one of the “StrategicPartnerships” activities under the university-wide
program “Constructing a global campus model at
UTokyo” funded by Top Global University Project of
MEXT. To activate mutual relationship in science andeducation between AORI and SIO, financial support
will be provided for 2 years. There has been a historyof cooperation for more than 25 years between these
two institutions. In 1988, an agreement of scientific,
educational and cultural cooperation was concluded
between AORI and SIO as a representative of eachaffiliating university (UTokyo and UCSD). In the newprogram, the current agreement and activities arereviewed and renovated to strengthen the partnershipand make it more effective for members of both
institutions. In addition, this is a joint program with
UTokyo Graduate School of Public Policy and UCSD
School of Global Policy that also have a history ofstrong partnership. The idea is to produce synergy
effect by integrating two different partnerships in
UTokyo and UCSD.
On 13th November of last year, Prof. Yutaka
Michida, Vice Director of AORI and I visited SIO andhad a meeting with Dr. Margaret Leinen, Director of
SIO to explain the program and intention of AORI.
Prof. Hideaki Shiroyama and Prof. Hiroshi Suzuki,
representative members of Graduate School of Public
Policy are in delegates. It was a successful meeting, as
Dr. Leinen agreed to initiate the program suggestingsome issues of possible cooperation such as El Nino
event, climate change issues and ship-time sharing etc.
After the meeting at Director’s office, we moved to

Meeting with Dr. Margaret Leinen, Director of SIO

Martin Johnson House to meet SIO scientists who havespecific interest in possible cooperation with AORI
scientists. Dr. Arthur J. Miller arranged the meeting asa contact person of SIO. About 10 scientists covering
broad fields in Oceanography and Atmospheric
Science joined the meeting. Martin Johnson House,
one of the earliest buildings in the SIO campus, wasoriginally built in 1916! In a cozy room of this historic
oceanfront cottage, SIO scientists presented their
specific interest and expectation to collaborative works.
After the meeting, they invited us a guided tour of
famous “Scripps Pier”. Since it’s Friday, I went to TG(http://siotgif.org), a weekly social event at SIO lastingover 40 years!, and enjoyed a chat with SIO students at
a beautiful surfside house.
The program was successfully launched startingfrom the visit to SIO in last November. The next issue
is to revise the agreement between AORI and SIO in a
few months. Also, a joint symposium and exchange ofyoung scientists are planned as specific activities in thenext fiscal year. I believe that the new partnership with
SIO provides an exciting opportunity to facilitate ouractivities in both science and education.

Meeting with SIO scientists at the Martin Johnson House

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CIC NEWSLETTER

No.13 2015

University of Tokyo and University of Hawai‘i
The 3rd Joint Symposium on Ocean, Coastal, and Atmospheric Sciences
Susumu HYODO

Associate Professor, Department of Marine BioscienceT

he 3rd Joint Symposium on Ocean, Coastal, andAtmospheric Sciences was held March 10–12,
2015, with support from the StrategicPartnership Program of the University of Tokyo andthe University of Hawai‘i Sea Grant College Program.
AORI established an academic exchange agreementwith the School of Ocean and Earth Science andTechnology (SOEST) at the University of Hawai‘i at
Manoa beginning in 1991, and collaborative researchhas been conducted in various fields of atmosphericsciences, ocean-earth system sciences, and marine life
sciences between AORI and SOEST. To facilitate
further exchange and promote new collaborations, the
1st Joint Symposium was held at Nakano campus in2008 and the 2nd Symposium in Hawai‘i in 2012. For
the 3rd Symposium, we invited 11 established andup-and-coming researchers from Hawai‘i, while 25
young scientists from AORI, including graduate
students, presented during the oral and poster sessions.
These joint symposia have led to significant
collaboration between AORI and SOEST researchers,
including joint grants and peer-reviewed publications.
It is highly expected that our partnership will continue
to contribute to the further promotion of new academic
exchanges and collaborations by the younger
generation of scientists. The 4th Joint Symposium isscheduled to be held in 2017 or 2018 in Hawai‘i.

A group photo at the end of symposium. The third from the right in the front row is Dr. Darren Lerner,
co-organizer of the joint symposium.

Joint symposium between UTokyo-AORI and IONTU
Asuka YAMAGUCHI

Assistant Professor, Department of Ocean Floor GeoscienceAs part of the strategic partnership between the
University of Tokyo (UTokyo) and National
Taiwan University (NTU), a joint symposium
entitled “UTokyo-NTU Ocean Science Seminar
2015-Academic and educational exchanges between
UTokyo-AORI and IONTU” was held on December 10,
2015. Prior to the symposium, Prof. A. Tsuda, Prof. Y.
Michida, and A. Yamaguchi visited Institute of
Oceanography, National Taiwan University (IONTU)
on October 25–27 to discuss the current state of each8

institute and exchange ideas regarding possible futurecollaboration. On the morning of December 10, 16
participants from IONTU toured the facilities of AORI,
such as the machine shop and Accelerator Mass
Spectrometry (AMS) laboratory. The symposium
started after a group lunch. One to two representativesof each university talked about topics including
physical oceanography, marine biology and fisheries,
marine geology and geophysics, and chemical
oceanography and marine geochemistry. Discussions

CIC NEWSLETTER

No.13 2015

were active and fruitful, revolving around many
common subject areas such as marine sciences in the
Kuroshio region, geosciences in the southwestern
Ryukyu arc, and bioresources in oceans around Japanand Taiwan. After the symposium, IONTU visitors alsojoined AORI’s annual Christmas Party and enjoyed thewarm atmosphere of our institute.

Greeting from Dr.Ching-Ling Wei,

Director of IONTU

A new international research initiative, SIMSEA,

launched under Future Earth
Mitsuo UEMATSU

Professor and Director, Center for International CollaborationT

he International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) held a landmark
synthesis event at the AGU Fall Meeting 2015 in San Francisco in December. The event celebrated the work andachievements of IGBP over the past three decades and included around 100 co-sponsored scientific sessions.

IGBP’s eight core projects that are ocean related (i.e., IMBER, LOICZ and SOLAS) were transferred to Future Earth.
Future Earth is a new 10-year international research initiative that will develop the knowledge required to respondeffectively to the risks and opportunities of global environmental change and to support transformation towards global
sustainability in the coming decades. Future Earth will mobilize thousands of scientists, while strengthening partnerships
with policy-makers and other stakeholders, to provide sustainability options and solutions in the wake of Rio+20.
Under Future Earth, the Sustainability Initiative in the Marginal seas of South and East Asia (SIMSEA) wasestablished as a program developed in Asia to meet the need for transformative change towards global sustainability in
Asia and the Pacific. Its objectives are:•

To co-design an integrative program that would establish pathways to sustainability of the marginal seas ofSouth and East Asia; and•To play a catalytic role among other projects and programs, facilitate cooperation, and close gaps inscience for the benefit of society

Program development was initiated by the Regional Office and its partners: the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth
Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) and the Marine Science Institute of the University of the Philippines, Diliman. The
Center for International Collaboration (CIC) of AORI has also been supporting the program as a partner. SIMSEA will
promote the development of an international alliance of scientists working together to generate policy- andcommunity-relevant knowledge regarding sustainability of the marginal seas of South and East Asia.
The SIMSEA Japan sub-committee, under the SCOR Japan committee, was approved by the Science Council ofJapan (SCJ), and the 1st meeting was held October 15, 2015. Prof. Emeritus Toshio YAMAGATA was selected as
Chair of the committee, and Prof. Mitsuo UEMATSU accepted the position of Vice-Chair. There is a possibility of
establishing a new office for SIMSEA Japan activities at the CIC of AORI. We are also discussing the collaboration of
SIMSEA with Coastal Marine Science in Southeast Asia (COMSEA), which is supported by the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science (JSPS), as a new direction for CIC.

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CIC NEWSLETTER

No.13 2015

PALSEA2 2015 Workshop:
Data-Model Integration
Comparison

andYusuke YOKOYAMA

Professor, Analytical Center for Environmental StudyU

nderstanding past sea level changes could
provide clues to understanding future
trajectories under the current global warming
climate. Recent advancements in both analyticaltechniques to decipher past changes as well as
hindcasting using mathematical modeling will greatly
improve our understanding of the system. The
PALSEA2 international workshop was held in
Kashiwa to promote collaboration between “dataresearchers” and “modelers” to meet the goal of
integrating data and model-based past reconstructionsof the climate, cryosphere, and sea level (Date: July
22–24, 2015).
More than 50 participants from over 15 countries,
ranging from graduate students to senior scientists,
participated and discussed a wide range of topics
related to sea level and ice sheet changes. Particularemphasis was repeatedly given during the conference
to clarify the uncertainties of various data and model

10

outputs. This highlighted the importance for the entire
community to be more quantitative when reporting andexplaining uncertainties. This will lead to theintegration of the interpretation and application ofclimate, cryosphere, and sea level reconstructions. This
will also be critical to advancing the data-modelcomparisons that were the focus of this workshop, as
well as other interdisciplinary collaborations within the
broader research community. Active discussions
continued during coffee breaks and the workshop
dinner. Some participants also enjoyed a lab tour ofboth the aquarium and AMS building.
Abe-sensei and I hosted the workshop together
with members of each lab. Tours of the aquarium andAMS building were organized by Hyodo-sensei and
the Center for Cooperative Research Promotion.

CIC NEWSLETTER

No.13 2015

Russia–Japan Joint Workshop on Environmental Investigationsin West Siberia and the Arctic
using a synergy of Russian Airplane-Laboratory and Japanese Satellites
Ryoichi IMASU

Associate Professor, Division of Climate System ResearchThe Arctic, including West Siberia, is the mostsensitive region in the world to the global
warming. Continuous and comprehensive
monitoring of the atmospheric environment has been
desired for this region. For this and related purposes,
airplanes are extremely useful for environmental
observation. Recently, the Federal Service for
Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring(ROSHYDROMET) has deployed a new airplane, theYakovlev-42D, a so-called “Airplane-Laboratory”, andhas entrusted the Central Aerological Observatory(CAO) with its operation. Japanese organizations haveon-going and future satellite missions. Professors of
AORI are leading these missions. It is expected thatthe synergetic use of the satellite data and the“Airplane-Laboratory”
cancontributetocomprehensive monitoring of the Arctic environment.
To promote the synergetic operation of the satellites
and the airplane, AORI and CAO entered an agreement
for scientific cooperation on November 7, 2014.

Within that framework, we co-organized the workshop
on 23–24 November 2015, positioning it as a kick-off
meeting for collaboration. The first day, four scientificsessions were convened: “Opening Session with
Keynotes,” “Aircraft Observations,” “Satellite
Missions,” and “Simulation Studies,” with 14 oralpresentations in all. The more than 30 participants
included 10 Japanese researchers from 8 organizations.
On the second day, a tour of the aircraft at an airport
had been originally scheduled. However, because of
the influence of a terrorist act that occurred in Paris theprior month, airport access was prohibited. Therefore,
we changed the schedule to include a tour of the CAO
laboratories and held a general discussion on futurecooperation between the Russian and Japanesescientific communities. To conclude the workshop, we
composed a statement of mutual agreement forcooperation on studies using data obtained using theRussian airplane and Japanese satellites.

“Airplane-Laboratory"(Yakovlev-42D)(photograph provided by CAO)ofROSHYDROMET

Group photograph of the workshop

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CIC NEWSLETTER

No.13 2015

Visit of the Norwegian Minister of Fisheries
Shinichi ITOProfessor, Division of Fisheries Environmental Oceanography

The Norwegian Minister of Fisheries, Ms. Elisabeth Aspaker, visited the Atmosphere and Ocean ResearchInstitute (AORI) on November 27, 2015, with seven people, including the Ambassador Erling Rimestad.
This visit to Japan by the Minister was to congratulate the first world champion of “The Global Sushi
Challenge.” Although the Minister’s schedule in Japan was very busy, she visited AORI because she anticipates
further development of collaborative investigations on climate, ocean ecosystems, and fisheries management
between Norwegian institutes and AORI. These collaborations began with the agreement of academic exchange
between the Bjerknes Center of Climate Research (Norway) and AORI, which was initiated on May 25, 2015.
Discussion with the Minister began with a welcome speech by the Director of AORI, Atsushi Tsuda. He
recommended that the Minister try some of the special sushi available in the restaurant “Hama,” which is locatedon the ground floor, on her next visit to Japan. The Director of the Center for International Collaboration, Mitsuo
Uematsu, briefly explained AORI. Shinichi Ito described the results of a collaborative study of the influences ofclimate change and variability on fish and fisheries, in which researchers from the Norwegian Institute of Marine
Research participated. He also introduced a study on the reproduction strategy of squid conducted by AssistantProfessor Yoko Iwata as an example of basic research that is important for the future prediction of climate effects
on fish and fisheries. Then, Professor Koji Inoue guided the Ministerto the fish rearing facilities, and Associate Professor Juichiro Ashi
showed the Minister the facility house and explained theself-navigation-type sample collection system (NSS).
Ms. Aspaker showed deep interest in marine research and asked avariety of interesting questions. Thanks to the elaborate preparations
made by the Administration Office staff, the Minister and Norwegian
guests seemed to enjoy AORI. Further international collaborative
investigations between Norway and Japan are anticipated to develop
through mutual contacts, such as those initiated during this visit.
The Norwegian Minister of Fisheries, Ms. Elisabeth
Aspaker, listening to the description of the fish rearing
facilities by Prof. Inoue.

The
The guests
guests fromfrom thethe Kingdom
Kingdom ofof Norway,
Norway, including
including thethe Minister
Minister ofof Fisheries,
Fisheries, Ms.
Ms. Elisabeth
Elisabeth Aspaker;
Aspaker; thethe Director
Director ofof
AORI,
Uematsu.
AORI, Prof.
Prof. Tsuda;
Tsuda; andand thethe Director
Director ofof thethe Center
Center forfor International
International Collaboration,
Collaboration, Prof.
prof.Uematsu

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CIC NEWSLETTER No.13 2015

Visiting Professors
Name / Affiliation
DHAKA,

Surendra

Nationality

Kumar

Length of stay
2014/5/1-2014/6/30

Sudden stratosphere and its
influence on the tropical dynamics
based on high resolution satellite
observations

Canada2014/6/1-2014/9/30

China

2014/7/1-2014/8/29

Dating carbonate fossils by U-Th4He:the chronometry of the global
climate changeRole of unsaturated fatty acids infish osmoregulation

China

2014/7/1-2014/12/31

Variabilityof
3-dimentional
propagation of wave flux between
stratosphere and troposphere

Australia

2014/9/4-2014/10/5

France2014/11/17-2015/1/15

USA

2015/1/7- 2015/3/31

Reconstruction of sea level andclimate change along the East
Australian margin and its impact on
tropical and subtropical reef
evolution
A research on the atmosphericaerosol remote sensing fromground-based and space-borne
radiometers
Understanding the Structural,
microphysical and Radiative
Characteristics of Cold Season

Rajdhani College, University of Delhi
Associate Professor
PINTI, Daniele L.

University of Quebec at Montreal
Professor
LI, Yuanyou (李遠友)Shantou University
Professor
WEI, Ke

Chinese Academy of Sciences, Instituteof Atmospheric Physics, Center for
Monsoon System Research
Associate Professor
WEBSTER,Jody Michael

School of Geosciences, the University ofSydneyDOUBOVIK,Oleg

Laboratoite d’Optique Atmospherique
CNRS, Universite de Lille
Research Director of 1 class
LIU, Guosheng (劉Subject for study

India

国勝)

Florida State University
Professor*Visiting professors’ reports of Division of Climate System Research are included in the CCSR NEWS.

Visiting professors’ reports

Jody WEBSTER
Associate Professor
Geocoastal Research Group, School of Geosciences
The University of Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

It has been a huge pleasure and honor to be aVisiting Professor at AORI for one month (Sep-Oct) in2014 and to work closely with my colleague Professor
Yusuke Yokoyama and his very active research group.
I am deeply appreciative of all the kind support andopportunities I received while at the AORI. It is anamazing place, with world class scientists andfacilities, combined with a warm and collegial
atmosphere. While my primary scientific objective inJapan was to work closely with Yusuke on finalizing
the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP)
Expedition 325 (Great Barrier Reef Environmental

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Changes) sea level results, my associated activities
were both varied and exciting.
When I first arrived at the AORI, I attended theAnnual meeting of Japan Association for Quaternary
Research. This was a highly enjoyable conference andI learnt a great deal about the latest paleoclimate
research ongoing in Japan and around the world. I
was also fortunate enough to present a paper,“Response of the Great Barrier Reef to sea level andenvironmental changes over the last 30 ka”, that waswell received but more importantly I was able to
network with numerous colleagues and discuss
potential future collaborations.
I then visited the Kochi Core Center to re-sample
and re-log the Exp. 325 fossil reef cores archived
there in order to fill in the last remaining data gaps in
the new relative sea level curve Yusuke and I arebuilding. I was joined at the Kochi Core Center bycolleagues from the University of Nagoya (Dr. Marc
Humblet) and Tohoku University (Professor YasufumiIryu). This trip was highly successful and laboratory
analyses on these new samples have already been
completed and these results are being incorporated
into several new publications planned for this year.
We also completed the 3D CT scans of the same cores
while at the Kochi Core Center using their new
instrument. These data will also us to “see into” thecores and quantify the coralgal frameworks,
bioerosion and other features in unprecedented detail
and will form the basis for several exciting new
research directions.
Another real highlight of my trip was theopportunity to visit Kanazawa and meet with emeritus
Professor Kenji Konishi. It has been over 20 years
since I first visited the Kanazawa where I spent 18

months as a Monbusho student while undertaking
part of my PhD studies under the kind and careful
supervision of Prof. Konishi. I was treated to awonderful tour and then lunch at the Department ofEarth Sciences at Kanazawa University. It was a realpleasure to see Professor Konishi, meet the faculty
and some of my former student colleagues (nowProfessors!) again. My time at Kanazawa University
was the foundation on which my career as a coral reef
geologist was built so it was an amazing personal
experience to stroll the beautiful streets of Kanazawa,
the campus and the famous Kenrokuen gardens after
so long.
Upon returning to Tokyo, I was able to work
closely again with Yusuke on the IODP. Exp. 325 data.
This period was highly productive and his team wasable to generate several hundred new C14-AMS ages
from fossil reef cores that we have been working on
to understand sea level changes and reef responsesof the Great Barrier Reef over the past 30 ka. We
were able to make enormous progress on
constructing a new, highly accurate relative sea level
curve that will represent a major advance in our
understanding of global sea level changes and ice
sheet dynamics. The new relative sea level curve isalmost complete and will result in several new
publications planned for this year.
My family arrived for the last two weeks of mystay in Japan. It was my wife and daughter’s first
visits to Japan and they thoroughly enjoyed theexperience. We were able to visit Kyoto andHiroshima while also exploring Tokyo. In summary,my trip to the AORI and Japan was both very
productive and successful and one that my family andI will never forget.

Yuanyou LI
Professor
Director in the Marine Biology Institute & Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology,
Shantou University, China

It has been a great pleasure and honor for me to visit AORI as
a visiting professor in July and Aug of 2014. Actually, that was mythird visit to Japan. My first visit to Japan lasted for two years from
Nov. 2000 to Nov. 2002, when I did my post-doctoral research as a
JSPS Fellow under the guidance of Professor Yoshio Takei at theLaboratory of Physiology of ORI. From that time on, I have been
keeping communication with Prof. Takei, who was invited to visit
Shantou University in 2009 and appointed to a guest professorshipfor a period of two years. My second visit was from July 29 to Aug4, when I and five professors from my university visited several
Japanese universities and institutes including AORI.

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During my stay in summer of 2014 at AORI, I dida cooperative research with prof. Takei on “Role ofunsaturated fatty acids in the osmoregulation ofJapanese eel”. It is generally thought that freshwater
fish have the ability to produce long-chain
polyunsaturated fatty acid (LC-PUFA) in vivo by aseries of desaturation and elongation reactions fromthe 18C PUFA precursors, while such ability is absent
or weak in marine teleost. Besides, it is reported thatsalinity can affect the ability of LC-PUFA biosynthesis
in some teleost such as Atlantic salmon and rabbitfish,and LC-PUFA can influence the osmoregulation of
teleost. However, to our knowledge, there is no reportreally concerning the relationship between LC-PUFA
biosynthesis and osmoregulation in fish. In thecooperative research, therefore, we tried toinvestigate such a relationship and the potential
mechanisms in eel, a euryhaline teleost which canacclimate to various salinities from fresh water toseawater. The in vivo experiments and some of thesample analysis were done in AORI, and theremained samples were determined in China. Now,
the collaborative paper entitled “LC-PUFA biosynthetic
regulation, a potential strategy involved inosmoregulation for Japanese eel Anguilla japonica” isalmost ready to be submitted.
In all, from the current visit to AORI, ourcooperative research was further strengthened, andit also let me once again feel the excellent service
from AORI, and the kind friendship from Japanese.

Daniele L. PINTI
Acting Director
GEOTOP research center for geochemistry and geodynamics
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
Montréal, Canada

I was delighted and honored to be a Visiting
Professor at the Atmosphere and Ocean ResearchInstitute of the University of Tokyo for 4 months insummer 2014. This period coincided with the
beginning of my sabbatical leave from UQAM. I joined
the Marine Analytical Chemistry staff directed by Prof.
Yuji Sano.
It is not the first time in Japan. I have a 21-years
experience with the country started at Osaka
University in 1995 when I reached the Graduate
School of Earth and Space Science for my postdoctoral studies. I meet first time Dr. Sano even
before, when I was a young PhD fellow at Universitéde Paris 6 and Dr. Sano was visiting our lab directedby his friend and my mentor, Dr. Bernard Marty. Thenin 2006 we started to collaborate on several issues
from paleoclimatology to groundwater resourcespassing through volcano hazards and mantle
geochemistry. The common denominator of thesestudies is noble gas geochemistry, for which Dr. Sano
is a worldwide renowned expert. Noble gases areinert and trace elements, two characteristics thatmake them excellent tracers of practically any
geological process on Earth (and the Solar System!).
Indeed, noble gas geochemistry is one of the mostversatile
fieldsgeochemistry,
pervadingcosmochemistry, Earth sciences, climatology andenvironmental sciences. Dr. Sano has an impressive
record of publications on any field of application ofnoble gas geochemistry, from meteorites tovolcanoes.
I really enjoyed working at the Marine Analytical
Chemistry division of AORI. You can really breathe
great science and be breed with stimulating ideas.
The atmosphere is very friendly but you feel thateverybody is working hard to reach the goal and you
can have stimulating conversations with the juniorfellows and senior staff. During my stay, we could
progress on several ongoing projects, from helium
dating of carbonates to groundwater research. The
main research topic was to advance in calibrating
radiogenic 4He (which is produced by U and Th inrocks) in order to test if we can obtain reliable UTh/4He ages for carbonate precipitates older than
350 ka (i.e. the age limit of the U-Th disequilibrium
dating method). This would be extremely useful for

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obtaining chronology of speleothems, fossil shells orcorals in pre-Quaternary paleoclimate studies.
During my stay at AORI, at my regret, I couldn’t
embark with the group for a scientific cruise to
Okinawa for personal problems. But I had my chancein the following winter, during a 2-months visiting
professorship at Osaka University. I indeed joint
briefly the Dr. Sano’s group on Ontake volcano tosample bubbling gas. This activity was carried out, in
a common effort of monitoring the activity of the
volcano, especially since the deadly eruption of
September 2014. Dr. Sano organized also a 2-day
workshop for his group on the flanks of the Fuji, in
Hakone at the end of September 2014 where I was
invited as lecture guest. We enjoyed good science,food and rotemburo! I was also invited as keynote

speaker at the DCO (Deep Carbon Observatory)
section at the 61th Annual Meeting of the
Geochemical Society of Japan that was held inToyama in September 2014. It was my first visit, in
21 years of Japan, on the Japan Sea side and I could
enjoy nice weather, good fish, sake and of course,
good science (not in this order I guess!).
In conclusion, in the numerous occasions that I
joint AORI I had great time in a very stimulating
scientific environment. Dr. Sano is an excellent hostand his laboratory is often the meeting point of
numerous foreign scientists, a real “melting pot”
where exchange of ideas and experiences is highly
prolific. Thanks again to Dr. Sano, the direction of
AORI and its administrative team for making thissojourn unforgettable.

CIC STAFF

Director of CIC

Prof. Mitsuo UEMATSU

International Scientific Planning
International Advanced ResearchInternational Research Cooperation

Prof. Yutaka MICHIDA
Prof. Mitsuo UEMATSU
Prof. Shuhei NISHIDA

Prof. Koji INOUE
Assoc. Prof. Ryoichi IMASU
Assoc. Prof. Jin-Oh PARK

Center for International Collaboration
Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute,
The University of Tokyo
5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8564, JAPAN
Phone&Fax : +81-4-7136-6361
URL : http://www.aori.u-tokyo.ac.jp/

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