The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) conducted the second Japanese global atmospheric reanalysis, called the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis or JRA-55. It covers the period from 1958, when regular radiosonde observations began on a global basis. JRA-55 is the first comprehensive reanalysis that has covered the last half-century since the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts 45-year Reanalysis (ERA-40), and is the first one to apply four-dimensional variational analysis to this period. The main objectives of JRA-55 were to address issues found in previous reanalyses and to produce a comprehensive atmospheric dataset suitable for studying multidecadal variability and climate change. This paper describes the observations, data assimilation system, and forecast model used to produce JRA-55 as well as the basic characteristics of the JRA-55 product.JRA-55 has been produced with the TL319 version of JMA's operational data assimilation system as of December 2009, which was extensively improved since the Japanese 25-year Reanalysis (JRA-25). It also uses several newly available and improved past observations. The resulting reanalysis products are considerably better than the JRA-25 product. Two major problems of JRA-25 were a cold bias in the lower stratosphere, which has been diminished, and a dry bias in the Amazon basin, which has been mitigated. The temporal consistency of temperature analysis has also been considerably improved compared to previous reanalysis products. Our initial quality evaluation revealed problems such as a warm bias in the upper troposphere, large upward imbalance in the global mean net energy fluxes at the top of the atmosphere and at the surface, excessive precipitation over the tropics, and unrealistic trends in analyzed tropical cyclone strength. This paper also assesses the impacts of model biases and changes in the observing system, and mentions efforts to further investigate the representation of low-frequency variability and trends in JRA-55.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) started the second Japanese global atmospheric reanalysis project named the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55). It covers 55 years, extending back to 1958, when the global radiosonde observing system was established. Many of the deficiencies found in the first Japanese reanalysis, the Japanese 25-year Reanalysis (JRA-25), have been improved. It aims at providing a comprehensive atmospheric dataset that is suitable for studies of climate change or multi-decadal variability, by producing a more time-consistent dataset for a longer period than JRA-25.Production of JRA-55 started in 2010, and computations for more than 16 years have been completed as of August 2011. The entire JRA-55 production will be completed in early 2013 and thereafter JRA-55 will be continued as a new JCDAS on real time basis. This paper is a brief report to introduce the JRA-55 reanalysis project. The data assimilation and prediction (DA) system used in JRA-55 is introduced and compared to that used in JRA-25. Early results of JRA-55 are presented and discussed, showing general improvements.

This study investigates the quality of the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55), which is the second global reanalysis constructed by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), by comparing it with other reanalyses and observational datasets. Improvements were found in the representation of atmospheric circulation on an isentropic surface and in the consistency of momentum budget based on the mass-weighted isentropic zonal mean method. The representation of climate variability in several regions was also examined. In the tropics, the frequencies of high spatial correlations with precipitation, which were estimated using the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis, are clearly higher in JRA-55 than in JRA-25. The results indicate that JRA-55 generally improved the representations of phenomena on a wide range of space-time scales, such as equatorial waves, and transient eddies in the storm track regions, compared with JRA-25 during the satellite era. Moreover, JRA-55 improved the temporal consistency compared with the older reanalyses throughout the reanalysis period. In the stratosphere, we found larger discrepancies between reanalyses for the extra-tropical stratosphere during the Southern Hemisphere (SH) winter. Comparisons with radiosonde temperature revealed that JRA-55 has a smaller bias in temperature than the other reanalyses in the extra-tropical SH winter before 1979.Some issues in JRA-55 were also identified. The amplitude of equatorial waves and Madden-Julian oscillation in JRA-55 are weaker than in the other reanalyses. JRA-55 shows unrealistic strong cooling in South America and Australia, although the spatial distribution of the long-term temperature trends in JRA-55 is the closest to an observational dataset of global historical surface temperature.

A massive earthquake of a magnitude (M) of 9.0 occurred on March 11, 2011, off the Pacific coast of the northeastern part of Honshu, Japan. Centroid Moment Tensor analysis of the mainshock indicates that it was the reverse fault type, with a WNW-ESE compressional axis. The earthquake occurred on the plate boundary between the island arc and the Pacific plates. Three aftershocks exceeding M 7 occurred within 40-min after the mainshock, and the aftershock area covered a wide range of 500-km × 200-km. Seismicity became active one month before the mainshock, and it continued for two weeks in an adjacent area northeast of the mainshock. Furthermore, foreshock activity with maximum M 7.3 started in the same area two days before the mainshock. Seismic activities increased in almost the entire area of the Japanese Islands after the mainshock. We infer that these earthquakes were induced by the mainshock. JMA displacement-amplitude magnitude of the mainshock was determined to be 8.4, which was smaller than the moment magnitude of 9.0. Key words: Foreshock and aftershock, massive earthquake on the plate boundary, induced seismicity, northeastern Japan.

The three‐dimensional P‐wave velocity structure of the Iwate volcano, northeastern Japan, is determined to depths of 2 km through an active seismic survey conducted in October 2000. Seismic tomography is applied to approximately 2700 travel‐time data. The most prominent discovery is an existing of column‐like high‐velocity body (Vp > 5.4 km/s) that extends vertically for 2 km beneath the caldera. While the western part of the volcano extending from the caldera is characterized by a moderate‐velocity region (4.8 < Vp < 5.4 km/s), the summit and eastern flank of the volcano are covered with very low‐velocity material (Vp < 4 km/s) which represent relatively younger volcanic edifices. The spatial difference in the velocity structures between the western and eastern parts of the volcano is explained by the evolutionary history of the volcano. And we find that the western structure may give constraints on the volcanic activity in 1998.

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Autocorrelation functions (ACFs) for ambient seismic noise are considered to be useful tools for estimating temporal changes in the subsurface structure. Velocity changes at Hakone volcano in central Japan, where remarkable swarm activity has often been observed, were investigated in this study. Significant velocity changes were detected during two seismic activities in 2011 and 2013. The 2011 activity began immediately after the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake, suggesting remote triggering by the dynamic stress changes resulting from the earthquake. During the 2013 activity, which exhibited swarm-like features, crustal deformations were detected by Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) stations and tiltmeters, suggesting a pressure increment of a Mogi point source at a depth of 7 km and two shallow open cracks. Waveforms that were bandpass-filtered between 1 and 3 Hz were used to calculate ACFs using a one-bit correlation technique. Fluctuations in the velocity structure were obtained using the stretching method. A gradual decrease in the velocity structure was observed prior to the 2013 activity at the KOM station near the central cone of the caldera, which started after the onset of crustal expansion observed by the GNSS stations. Additionally, a sudden significant velocity decrease was observed at the OWD station near a fumarolic area just after the onset of the 2013 activity and the tilt changes. The changes in the stress and strain caused by the deformation sources were likely the main contributors to these decreases in velocity. The precursory velocity reduction at the KOM station likely resulted from the inflation of the deep Mogi source, whereas the sudden velocity decrease at the OWD station may reflect changes in the strain caused by the shallow open-crack source. Rapid velocity decreases were also detected at many stations in and around the volcano after the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake. The velocity changes may reflect the redistribution of hydrothermal fluid in response to the large stress perturbation caused by the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake.

The phreatic eruption of Mt. Ontake in central Japan occurred in September 27, 2014. No obvious crustal deformation was observed prior to the eruption, and the magnitudes of other precursor phenomena were very small. In this study, we used the stacking method to detect crustal deformation prior to the eruption. The stacking method is a technique to improve the signal-to-noise ratio by stacking multiple records of crustal deformation. We succeeded in detecting a slight crustal deformation caused by a volume change in the shallow region beneath the volcano's summit from 1 month prior to the eruption. We also detected a slight crustal deformation that may have been caused by a volume increase in the deep region from one and a half months before the eruption. The magnitude of the volume change in the shallow region did not differ significantly in the 2014 eruption compared to the volume change during the small Mt. Ontake eruption in 2007, and the volume change in the deep region was rather smaller in 2014 than in 2007.