In March 2013, the world's first field trial of gas production from marine methane hydrate deposits was conducted in the Daini Atsumi Knoll area of the Eastern Nankai Trough off the Pacific coast of Japan as a process to bring gas hydrates under seafloor to valuable energy resource. The technique used to dissociate the ice-like material was "depressurization method" that had been applied in the previous production test in Mallik site, the Northwest Territories, Canada in 2007-2008. Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) as a part of MH21, the Research Consortium for Methane Hydrate Resources in Japan planed and supervised the project with the funding of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and scientific supports from the National Institute of Advance Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). One production well with two monitoring boreholes were drilled in the test site for the test. Along with the flow test operation, intensive data acquisition program was planned and implemented to understand behavior of methane hydrate dissociation- bearing sediments against depressurization. To realize high degree of drawdown in relatively shallow formation below deepwater, several downhole devices were designed and installed. The flow test started in the morning of March 12 and lasted until severe sand production forced to terminate the operation six days later. During the stable production term, gas flow rate was approximately 20,000m3 under atmospheric condition, and gas liquid ratio was larger than 100. A lot of data including formation temperatures, fluid pressure and temperature, and physical property changes in the formation were obtained. The data taken are under studies to verify applicability of the depressurization technique as a methane hydrate production technologies.

[1] We examined the role of variability in the input of stratospheric ozone on the interannual variability of tropospheric ozone in the northern extratropics using correlations of monthly ozone anomalies for the lower stratosphere and the troposphere. We used output from a multiyear simulation of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Chemistry and Transport Model (CTM), and evaluated model results using ozonesonde data. The GSFC CTM explicitly calculates stratospheric ozone and simulates separate tracers of stratospheric and tropospheric ozone (O 3 -strat and O 3 -trop, respectively). The climatological seasonal cycle of ozone shows that O 3 -strat contributes significantly to the spring maximum of ozone at 500 hPa, $40% at high latitudes and $30% at midlatitudes. We find large regional differences in the correlation of ozone in the lower stratosphere and troposphere in the model that are supported by the ozonesonde data. Highest correlations are found from the eastern Atlantic to Europe, from the eastern Pacific to the western United States, and over the polar regions, in winter-spring. This spatial pattern is due to the input of O 3 -strat into the troposphere. The distribution and time lag of the correlations (highest with no lag for midlatitudes and a 1-2 month lag for polar regions) are consistent with the dynamical indicators of stratosphere-troposphere exchange (STE), such as storm tracks in the midlatitudes and slow descending motion in the polar region. Our simple approach can be widely applied to diagnose the effect of STE on tropospheric ozone.

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[1] Quantitative chemical ozone loss rates and amounts in the Arctic polar vortex for the spring of 1997 are analyzed based on ozone profile data obtained by the Improved Limb Atmospheric Spectrometer (ILAS) using an extension of the Match technique. In this study, we calculated additional multiple trajectories and set very strict criteria to overcome the weakness of the satellite sensor data (lower vertical resolution and larger sampling air mass volume) and to identify more accurately a double-sounded air mass. On the average inside the inner edge of the vortex boundary (north of about 70°N equivalent latitude), the local ozone loss rate was 50-80 ppbv/day at the maximum during late February between the levels of 450 and 500 K potential temperatures. The integrated ozone loss during February to March reached 2.0 ± 0.1 ppmv at 475-529 K levels, and the column ozone loss between 400 and 600 K during the 2 months was 96 ± 0.3 DU. Using a relative potential vorticity (rPV) scale, the vortex was divided into some rPV belts, and it was shown that the magnitude of the ozone loss increased gradually toward the vortex center from the edge. The maximum ozone loss rate of 6.0 ± 0.6 ppbv/sunlit hour near the vortex center was higher than near the vortex edge by a factor of 2-3. When we expanded the area of interest to include all the data obtained inside the vortex edge (north of about 65°N equivalent latitude), the local ozone loss rate was about 50 ppbv/day at the maximum. This value is slightly larger than that estimated by the Match analysis using ozonesondes for the same winter by $10 ppbv/day. Temperature histories of double-sounded air parcels indicated that the extreme ozone loss in the innermost part of the vortex was observed when the air parcel experienced temperatures below T NAT during the two soundings and had experienced temperatures near T ice in the 10 days prior to the first sounding. These facts suggest that the high ozone loss rate deep inside the vortex in the 1997 Arctic early spring correlates with the presence of type Ia polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs).

A solar occultation sensor, the Improved Limb Atmospheric Spectrometer (ILAS)-II, measured 5890 vertical profiles of ozone concentrations in the stratosphere and lower mesosphere and of other species from January to October 2003. The measurement latitude coverage was 54–71°N and 64–88°S, which is similar to the coverage of ILAS (November 1996 to June 1997). One purpose of the ILAS-II measurements was to continue such high-latitude measurements of ozone and its related chemical species in order to help accurately determine their trends. The present paper assesses the quality of ozone data in the version 1.4 retrieval algorithm, through comparisons with results obtained from comprehensive ozonesonde measurements and four satellite-borne solar occultation sensors. In the Northern Hemisphere (NH), the ILAS-II ozone data agree with the other data within ±10% (in terms of the absolute difference divided by its mean value) at altitudes between 11 and 40 km, with the median coincident ILAS-II profiles being systematically up to 10% higher below 20 km and up to 10% lower between 21 and 40 km after screening possible suspicious retrievals. Above 41 km, the negative bias between the NH ILAS-II ozone data and the other data increases with increasing altitude and reaches 30% at 61–65 km. In the Southern Hemisphere, the ILAS-II ozone data agree with the other data within ±10% in the altitude range of 11–60 km, with the median coincident profiles being on average up to 10% higher below 20 km and up to 10% lower above 20 km. Considering the accuracy of the other data used for this comparative study, the version 1.4 ozone data are suitably used for quantitative analyses in the high-latitude stratosphere in both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere and in the lower mesosphere in the Southern Hemisphere