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Tokyo
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Tokyo, officially Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan and one of its 47 prefectures. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous area in the world. It is the seat of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese government, Tokyo is in the Kantō region on the southeastern side of the main island Honshu and includes the Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands. Formerly known as Edo, it has been the de facto seat of government since 1603 when Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu made the city his headquarters. It officially became the capital after Emperor Meiji moved his seat to the city from the old capital of Kyoto in 1868, Tokyo Metropolis was formed in 1943 from the merger of the former Tokyo Prefecture and the city of Tokyo. The Tokyo metropolitan government administers the 23 Special Wards of Tokyo, the metropolitan government also administers 39 municipalities in the western part of the prefecture and the two outlying island chains. The population of the wards is over 9 million people. The prefecture is part of the worlds most populous metropolitan area with upwards of 37.8 million people, the city hosts 51 of the Fortune Global 500 companies, the highest number of any city in the world. Tokyo ranked third in the International Financial Centres Development IndexEdit, the city is also home to various television networks such as Fuji TV, Tokyo MX, TV Tokyo, TV Asahi, Nippon Television, NHK and the Tokyo Broadcasting System. Tokyo ranked first in the Global Economic Power Index and fourth in the Global Cities Index. The city is considered a world city – as listed by the GaWCs 2008 inventory – and in 2014. In 2015, Tokyo was named the Most Liveable City in the world by the magazine Monocle, the Michelin Guide has awarded Tokyo by far the most Michelin stars of any city in the world. Tokyo ranked first in the world in the Safe Cities Index, the 2016 edition of QS Best Student Cities ranked Tokyo as the 3rd-best city in the world to be a university student. Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics, the 1979 G-7 summit, the 1986 G-7 summit, and the 1993 G-7 summit, and will host the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tokyo was originally known as Edo, which means estuary. During the early Meiji period, the city was also called Tōkei, some surviving official English documents use the spelling Tokei. However, this pronunciation is now obsolete, the name Tokyo was first suggested in 1813 in the book Kondō Hisaku, written by Satō Nobuhiro. When Ōkubo Toshimichi proposed the renaming to the government during the Meiji Restoration, according to Oda Kanshi, Tokyo was originally a small fishing village named Edo, in what was formerly part of the old Musashi Province. Edo was first fortified by the Edo clan, in the twelfth century
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Government of Japan
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The government of Japan is a constitutional monarchy in which the power of the Emperor is limited and is relegated primarily to ceremonial duties. As in many states, the Government is divided into three branches, the Executive branch, the Legislative branch and the Judicial branch. The Government runs under the established by the Constitution of Japan adopted in 1947. It is a state, containing forty-seven administrative divisions, with the Emperor as its head of state. His role is ceremonial and he has no powers related to Government, instead, it is the Cabinet, composing of the Ministers of State and the Prime Minister, that directs and controls the Government. The Cabinet is the source of power of the Executive branch, and is formed by the Prime Minister and he or she is designated by the National Diet and appointed to office by the Emperor. The National Diet is the legislature, the organ of the Legislative branch and it is bicameral, consisting of two houses with the House of Councillors being the upper house, and the House of Representatives being the lower house. Its members are elected from the people, who are the source of sovereignty. The Supreme Court and other inferior courts make up the Judicial branch, and they are independent from the executive, prior to the Meiji Restoration, Japan was ruled by successive military shoguns. During this period, effective power of the government resided in the Shogun, the Shoguns were the hereditary military governors, with their modern rank equivalent to a generalissimo. Although the Emperor was the sovereign who appointed the Shogun, his roles were ceremonial and this is often compared to the present role of the Emperor, whose official role is to appoint the Prime Minister. The Meiji Restoration in 1868 led to the resignation of Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu and this event restored the country to Imperial rule and the proclamation of the Empire of Japan. In 1889, the Meiji Constitution was adopted in a move to strengthen Japan to the level of western nations and it provided a form of mixed constitutional-absolute monarchy, with an independent judiciary, based on the Prussian model of the time. A new aristocracy known as the Kazoku was established and it merged the ancient court nobility of the Heian period, the Kuge, and the former Daimyo, feudal lords subordinate to the Shogun. It also established the Imperial Diet, consisting of the House of Representatives, members of the House of Peers were made up of the Imperial Family, the Kazoku, and those nominated by the Emperor, while members of the House of Representatives were elected by direct male suffrage. Despite clear distinctions between powers of the branch and the Emperor in the Meiji Constitution, ambiguity and contradictions in the Constitution eventually led to a political crisis. It also devalued the notion of control over the military. Following the end of World War II, the Constitution of Japan was adopted as an intention to replace the previous Imperial rule with a form of Western-style liberal democracy, the Emperor of Japan is the head of the Imperial Family and the ceremonial head of state
3.
Chiyoda, Tokyo
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Chiyoda is a special ward located in central Tokyo, Japan. In English, it is called Chiyoda City, Chiyoda consists of the Imperial Palace and a surrounding radius of about a kilometer. As of May 2015, the ward has an population of 54,462. The total area is 11.66 km², of which the Imperial Palace, Hibiya Park, National Museum of Modern Art, often called the political center of the country, Chiyoda, literally meaning field of a thousand generations, inherited the name from the Chiyoda Castle. Akihabara, a known for being an otaku cultural center. The Chiyoda ward was created on March 15,1947 by the unification of Kanda Ward and it has been a site of a number of historical events. In 1860, the assassination of Ii Naosuke took place outside the Sakurada Gate of the Imperial Palace, in 1932, assassins attacked and killed prime minister Inukai Tsuyoshi. In 1936, an attempted coup détat, the February 26 Incident, in 1960, Socialist Party leader Inejirō Asanuma was assassinated in Hibiya Hall. In 1995, members of Aum Shinrikyo carried out the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, Chiyoda is located at the very heart of former Tokyo City in eastern mainland Tokyo. The central area of the ward is occupied by the Imperial Palace. The east side of the ward, bordering Chūō, is the location of Tokyo Station, the south side, bordering Minato, encompasses Hibiya Park and the National Diet Building. It is almost exclusively occupied by administrations and agencies, the west and northwest are primarily upper class residential, the Yasukuni Shrine is also there. To the north and northeast are several neighborhoods and the Akihabara commercial district. Chiyoda is run by an elected mayor and a city assembly of 25 elected members. The current mayor is Masami Ishikawa, an independent, for the Metropolitan Assembly, Chiyoda forms a single-member electoral district. In the 2013 election, no Democrat contested the seat and Uchida won back the district against a Communist, the Tokyo Fire Department has its headquarters in Ōtemachi in Chiyoda. For the national House of Representatives, Chiyoda, together with Minato and Shinjuku, the district is currently represented by Liberal Democrat Miki Yamada. The ward is home to the Diet of Japan, the Supreme Court of Japan
4.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Japanese yen
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The yen is the official currency of Japan. It is the third most traded currency in the exchange market after the United States dollar. It is also used as a reserve currency after the U. S. dollar, the euro. Before the Meiji Restoration, Japans feudal fiefs all issued their own money, hansatsu, in an array of incompatible denominations. The New Currency Act of 1871 did away with these and established the yen, the former han became prefectures and their mints private chartered banks, which initially retained the right to print money. To bring an end to this situation the Bank of Japan was founded in 1882, following World War II the yen lost much of its prewar value. To stabilize the Japanese economy the exchange rate of the yen was fixed at ¥360 per $1 as part of the Bretton Woods system, when that system was abandoned in 1971, the yen became undervalued and was allowed to float. The yen had appreciated to a peak of ¥271 per $1 in 1973, then underwent periods of depreciation and appreciation due to the 1973 oil crisis, arriving at a value of ¥227 per $1 by 1980. Since 1973, the Japanese government has maintained a policy of intervention. The Japanese government focuses on an export market, and tries to ensure a low yen value through a trade surplus. Since that time, however, the yen has greatly decreased in value, the Bank of Japan maintains a policy of zero to near-zero interest rates and the Japanese government has an extreme anti-inflation policy. Yen derives from the Japanese word 圓, which is cognate with the Chinese yuan, originally, the Chinese had traded silver in mass called sycees and when Spanish and Mexican silver coins arrived, the Chinese called them silver rounds for their circular shapes. The coins and the name appeared in Japan. While the Chinese eventually replaced 圓 with 元, the Japanese continued to use the same word, the spelling and pronunciation yen is standard in English. This is because mainly English speakers who visited Japan at the end of the Edo period to the early Meiji period spelled words this way, ゑん /wen/ in historical kana orthography. In the 16th century, Japanese /e/ and /we/ both had been pronounced and Portuguese missionaries had spelled them ye, some time thereafter, by the middle of the 18th century, /e/ and /we/ came to be pronounced as in modern Japanese, although some regions retain the pronunciation. In the early Meiji era, James Curtis Hepburn, following Medhurst, spelled all es as ye in his A Japanese and that was the first full-scale Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary, which had a strong influence on Westerners in Japan and probably prompted the spelling yen. Hepburn revised most of yes to e in the 3rd edition in order to mirror the contemporary pronunciation and this was probably already fixed and has remained so ever since
7.
Natural phenomenon
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A natural phenomenon is an observable event which is not man-made. Types of natural phenomena include, but are not limited to, decomposition – by which organic substances are broken down into a much simpler form of matter Metabolism Catabolism Anabolism Fermentation – converts sugar to acids, gases and/or alcohol. Violent Meteorological phenomena are called storms, regular, cyclical phenomena include seasons and atmospheric circulation. Elementary particle interactions Supernova Oceanographic phenomena include tsunamis, ocean currents and breaking waves
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Meteorology
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Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences which includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics, with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century, the 19th century saw modest progress in the field after weather observation networks were formed across broad regions. Prior attempts at prediction of weather depended on historical data, Meteorological phenomena are observable weather events that are explained by the science of meteorology. Different spatial scales are used to describe and predict weather on local, regional, Meteorology, climatology, atmospheric physics, and atmospheric chemistry are sub-disciplines of the atmospheric sciences. Meteorology and hydrology compose the interdisciplinary field of hydrometeorology, the interactions between Earths atmosphere and its oceans are part of a coupled ocean-atmosphere system. Meteorology has application in diverse fields such as the military, energy production, transport, agriculture. The word meteorology is from Greek μετέωρος metéōros lofty, high and -λογία -logia -logy, varāhamihiras classical work Brihatsamhita, written about 500 AD, provides clear evidence that a deep knowledge of atmospheric processes existed even in those times. In 350 BC, Aristotle wrote Meteorology, Aristotle is considered the founder of meteorology. One of the most impressive achievements described in the Meteorology is the description of what is now known as the hydrologic cycle and they are all called swooping bolts because they swoop down upon the Earth. Lightning is sometimes smoky, and is then called smoldering lightning, sometimes it darts quickly along, at other times, it travels in crooked lines, and is called forked lightning. When it swoops down upon some object it is called swooping lightning, the Greek scientist Theophrastus compiled a book on weather forecasting, called the Book of Signs. The work of Theophrastus remained a dominant influence in the study of weather, in 25 AD, Pomponius Mela, a geographer for the Roman Empire, formalized the climatic zone system. According to Toufic Fahd, around the 9th century, Al-Dinawari wrote the Kitab al-Nabat, ptolemy wrote on the atmospheric refraction of light in the context of astronomical observations. St. Roger Bacon was the first to calculate the size of the rainbow. He stated that a rainbow summit can not appear higher than 42 degrees above the horizon, in the late 13th century and early 14th century, Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī and Theodoric of Freiberg were the first to give the correct explanations for the primary rainbow phenomenon. Theoderic went further and also explained the secondary rainbow, in 1716, Edmund Halley suggested that aurorae are caused by magnetic effluvia moving along the Earths magnetic field lines. In 1441, King Sejongs son, Prince Munjong, invented the first standardized rain gauge and these were sent throughout the Joseon Dynasty of Korea as an official tool to assess land taxes based upon a farmers potential harvest. In 1450, Leone Battista Alberti developed a swinging-plate anemometer, and was known as the first anemometer, in 1607, Galileo Galilei constructed a thermoscope
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Hydrology
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Hydrology is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources and environmental watershed sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is a hydrologist, working within the fields of earth or environmental science, physical geography, geology or civil, Hydrology subdivides into surface water hydrology, groundwater hydrology, and marine hydrology. Domains of hydrology include hydrometeorology, surface hydrology, hydrogeology, drainage-basin management and water quality, oceanography and meteorology are not included because water is only one of many important aspects within those fields. Hydrological research can inform environmental engineering, policy and planning, the term hydrology comes from Greek, ὕδωρ, hýdōr, water, and λόγος, lógos, study. Chemical hydrology is the study of the characteristics of water. Ecohydrology is the study of interactions between organisms and the hydrologic cycle, hydrogeology is the study of the presence and movement of groundwater. Hydroinformatics is the adaptation of technology to hydrology and water resources applications. Hydrometeorology is the study of the transfer of water and energy between land and water surfaces and the lower atmosphere. Isotope hydrology is the study of the signatures of water. Surface hydrology is the study of processes that operate at or near Earths surface. Drainage basin management covers water-storage, in the form of reservoirs, water quality includes the chemistry of water in rivers and lakes, both of pollutants and natural solutes. Determining the water balance of a region, mitigating and predicting flood, landslide and drought risk. Real-time flood forecasting and flood warning, designing irrigation schemes and managing agricultural productivity. Part of the module in catastrophe modeling. Designing dams for water supply or hydroelectric power generation, designing sewers and urban drainage system. Analyzing the impacts of antecedent moisture on sanitary sewer systems, predicting geomorphologic changes, such as erosion or sedimentation. Assessing the impacts of natural and anthropogenic environmental change on water resources, assessing contaminant transport risk and establishing environmental policy guidelines. Hydrology has been a subject of investigation and engineering for millennia, for example, about 4000 BC the Nile was dammed to improve agricultural productivity of previously barren lands
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Seismology
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Seismology is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other planet-like bodies. A related field that uses geology to infer information regarding past earthquakes is paleoseismology, a recording of earth motion as a function of time is called a seismogram. A seismologist is a scientist who does research in seismology, scholarly interest in earthquakes can be traced back to antiquity. Early speculations on the causes of earthquakes were included in the writings of Thales of Miletus, Anaximenes of Miletus, Aristotle. In 132 CE, Zhang Heng of Chinas Han dynasty designed the first known seismoscope, in 1664, Athanasius Kircher argued that earthquakes were caused by the movement of fire within a system of channels inside the Earth. In 1703, Martin Lister and Nicolas Lemery proposed that earthquakes were caused by chemical explosions within the earth, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, coinciding with the general flowering of science in Europe, set in motion intensified scientific attempts to understand the behaviour and causation of earthquakes. The earliest responses include work by John Bevis and John Michell, Michell determined that earthquakes originate within the Earth and were waves of movement caused by shifting masses of rock miles below the surface. From 1857, Robert Mallet laid the foundation of instrumental seismology and he is also responsible for coining the word seismology. In 1897, Emil Wiecherts theoretical calculations led him to conclude that the Earths interior consists of a mantle of silicates, surrounding a core of iron. In 1906 Richard Dixon Oldham identified the separate arrival of P-waves, S-waves and surface waves on seismograms, in 1910, after studying the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Harry Fielding Reid put forward the elastic rebound theory which remains the foundation for modern tectonic studies. The development of this depended on the considerable progress of earlier independent streams of work on the behaviour of elastic materials. In 1926, Harold Jeffreys was the first to claim, based on his study of waves, that below the mantle. In 1937, Inge Lehmann determined that within the liquid outer core there is a solid inner core. By the 1960s, earth science had developed to the point where a comprehensive theory of the causation of seismic events had come together in the now well-established theory of plate tectonics, seismic waves are elastic waves that propagate in solid or fluid materials. There are two types of waves, Pressure waves or Primary waves and Shear or Secondary waves. S-waves are transverse waves that move perpendicular to the direction of propagation, therefore, they appear later than P-waves on a seismogram. Fluids cannot support perpendicular motion, so S-waves only travel in solids, the two main surface wave types are Rayleigh waves, which have some compressional motion, and Love waves, which do not. Rayleigh waves result from the interaction of vertically polarized P- and S-waves that satisfy the conditions on the surface
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Volcanology
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Volcanology is the study of volcanoes, lava, magma, and related geological, geophysical and geochemical phenomena. The term volcanology is derived from the Latin word vulcan, vulcan was the ancient Roman god of fire. A volcanologist is a geologist who studies the activity and formation of volcanoes. Volcanologists frequently visit volcanoes, especially active ones, to observe volcanic eruptions, collect eruptive products including tephra, rock and lava samples. One major focus of enquiry is the prediction of eruptions, there is no accurate way to do this. In 1841, the first volcanological observatory, the Vesuvius Observatory, was founded in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, surface deformation monitoring includes the use of geodetic techniques such as leveling, tilt, strain, angle and distance measurements through tiltmeters, total stations and EDMs. This also includes GNSS observations and InSAR, surface deformation indicates magma upwelling, increased magma supply produces bulges in the volcanic centers surface. Gas emissions may be monitored with equipment including portable ultra-violet spectrometers, increased gas emissions, and more particularly changes in gas compositions, may signal an impending volcanic eruption. Temperature changes are monitored using thermometers and observing changes in properties of volcanic lakes and vents. Satellites are widely used to monitor volcanoes, as they allow an area to be monitored easily. They can measure the spread of an ash plume, such as the one from Eyjafjallajokulls 2010 eruption, InSAR and thermal imaging can monitor large, scarcely populated areas where it would be too expensive to maintain instruments on the ground. Stratigraphic analyses includes analyzing tephra and lava deposits and dating these to give volcano eruption patterns, with estimated cycles of intense activity and size of eruptions. The earliest known recording of an eruption may be on a wall painting dated to about 7,000 BCE found at the Neolithic site at Çatal Höyük in Anatolia. This painting has been interpreted as a depiction of a volcano, with a cluster of houses below shows a twin peaked volcano in eruption. The volcano may be either Hasan Dağ, or its smaller neighbour, the classical world of Greece and the early Roman Empire explained volcanoes as sites of various gods. Greeks considered that Hephaestus, the god of fire, sat below the volcano Etna, the Greek word used to describe volcanoes was etna, or hiera, after Heracles, the son of Zeus. Enceladus brother Mimas was buried beneath Vesuvius by Hephaestus, and the blood of other defeated giants welled up in the Phlegrean Fields surrounding Vesuvius, the Greek philosopher Empedocles saw the world divided into four elemental forces, of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Volcanoes, Empedocles maintained, were the manifestation of Elemental Fire, plato contended that channels of hot and cold waters flow in inexhaustible quantities through subterranean rivers
12.
Weather forecasting
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Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a given location. Human beings have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia, hence, forecasts become less accurate as the difference between current time and the time for which the forecast is being made increases. The use of ensembles and model consensus help narrow the error, there are a variety of end uses to weather forecasts. Weather warnings are important forecasts because they are used to protect life, forecasts based on temperature and precipitation are important to agriculture, and therefore to traders within commodity markets. Temperature forecasts are used by utility companies to estimate demand over coming days, on an everyday basis, people use weather forecasts to determine what to wear on a given day. Since outdoor activities are severely curtailed by rain, snow and wind chill, forecasts can be used to plan activities around these events. In 2014, the US spent $5.1 billion on weather forecasting, for millennia people have tried to forecast the weather. In 650 BC, the Babylonians predicted the weather from cloud patterns as well as astrology, in about 340 BC, Aristotle described weather patterns in Meteorologica. Later, Theophrastus compiled a book on weather forecasting, called the Book of Signs, chinese weather prediction lore extends at least as far back as 300 BC, which was also around the same time ancient Indian astronomers developed weather-prediction methods. You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, ancient weather forecasting methods usually relied on observed patterns of events, also termed pattern recognition. For example, it might be observed if the sunset was particularly red. This experience accumulated over the generations to produce weather lore, however, not all of these predictions prove reliable, and many of them have since been found not to stand up to rigorous statistical testing. It was not until the invention of the telegraph in 1835 that the modern age of weather forecasting began. Before that, the fastest that distant weather reports could travel was around 100 miles per day, the two men credited with the birth of forecasting as a science were officer of the Royal Navy Francis Beaufort and his protégé Robert FitzRoy. Beaufort developed the Wind Force Scale and Weather Notation coding, which he was to use in his journals for the remainder of his life. He also promoted the development of reliable tide tables around British shores, Robert FitzRoy was appointed in 1854 as chief of a new department within the Board of Trade to deal with the collection of weather data at sea as a service to mariners. This was the forerunner of the modern Meteorological Office, all ship captains were tasked with collating data on the weather and computing it, with the use of tested instruments that were loaned for this purpose. Fifteen land stations were established to use the new telegraph to transmit to him daily reports of weather at set times leading to the first gale warning service and his warning service for shipping was initiated in February 1861, with the use of telegraph communications
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Marine weather forecasting
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Marine weather forecasting is the process by which mariners and meteorological organizations have attempted to forecast future weather conditions over the Earths oceans. Marine weather forecasts by various organizations can be traced back to the sinking of the Royal Charter in 1859. The importance of weather over the ocean during World War II led to delayed or secret weather reports, Weather ships were established by various nations during World War II for forecasting purposes, and were maintained through 1985 to help with transoceanic plane navigation. Voluntary observations from ships, weather buoys, weather satellites, and numerical weather prediction have been used to diagnose, since the 1960s, numerical weather predictions role over the Earths seas has taken a greater role in the forecast process. Weather elements such as sea state, surface winds, tide levels, currently, the Japan Meteorological Agency, the United States National Weather Service, and the United Kingdom Met Office create marine weather forecasts for the Northern Hemisphere. There are various origins for government-issued marine weather forecasts, generally following maritime disasters, in October 1859, the steam clipper Royal Charter was wrecked in a strong storm off Anglesey,450 people lost their lives. Due to this loss, Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy introduced a service for shipping in February 1861. This remained the United Kingdom Met Offices primary responsibility for some time afterwards, in 1911, the Met Office had begun issuing marine weather forecasts which included gale and storm warnings via radio transmission for areas around Great Britain. This service was discontinued during and following World War I, between 1914 and June 1921, and again during World War II between 1939 and 1945. The first attempt as a weather program within the United States was initiated in New Orleans. A January 23,1873 memo directed the New Orleans Signal Observer to transcribe meteorological data from the logs of those arriving in port. Marine forecasting responsibility transferred from the United States Navy to the Weather Bureau in 1904, the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912 played a pivotal role in marine weather forecasting globally. In response to tragedy, an international commission was formed to determine requirements for safer ocean voyages. In 1914, the work resulted in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea. Within the United States National Weather Service, forecast weather maps began to be published by offices in New York City, San Francisco, and Honolulu for public use. Between 1986 and 1989, the portion of the National Meteorological Center known as the Ocean Products Center was responsible for weather forecasting within the NWS. Between August 1989 and 1995, the named the Marine Forecast Branch also was involved in providing objective analysis and forecast products for marine. The trade winds blow westward in the tropics, and the westerlies blow eastward at mid-latitudes and this wind pattern applies a stress to the subtropical ocean surface with negative curl across the north Atlantic Ocean
14.
Types of volcanic eruptions
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Several types of volcanic eruptions—during which lava, tephra, and assorted gases are expelled from a volcanic vent or fissure—have been distinguished by volcanologists. These are often named after famous volcanoes where that type of behavior has been observed, some volcanoes may exhibit only one characteristic type of eruption during a period of activity, while others may display an entire sequence of types all in one eruptive series. There are three different types of eruptions, the most well-observed are magmatic eruptions, which involve the decompression of gas within magma that propels it forward. Phreatomagmatic eruptions are another type of eruption, driven by the compression of gas within magma. Within these wide-defining eruptive types are several subtypes, the weakest are Hawaiian and submarine, then Strombolian, followed by Vulcanian and Surtseyan. The stronger eruptive types are Pelean eruptions, followed by Plinian eruptions, subglacial and phreatic eruptions are defined by their eruptive mechanism, and vary in strength. An important measure of strength is Volcanic Explosivity Index, an order of magnitude scale ranging from 0 to 8 that often correlates to eruptive types. Explosive eruptions are characterized by gas-driven explosions that propels magma and tephra, effusive eruptions, meanwhile, are characterized by the outpouring of lava without significant explosive eruption. Volcanic eruptions vary widely in strength, on the one extreme there are effusive Hawaiian eruptions, which are characterized by lava fountains and fluid lava flows, which are typically not very dangerous. On the other extreme, Plinian eruptions are large, violent, volcanoes are not bound to one eruptive style, and frequently display many different types, both passive and explosive, even the span of a single eruptive cycle. Volcanoes do not always erupt vertically from a crater near their peak. Some volcanoes exhibit lateral and fissure eruptions, notably, many Hawaiian eruptions start from rift zones, and some of the strongest Surtseyan eruptions develop along fracture zones. Scientists believed that pulses of magma mixed together in the chamber before climbing upward—a process estimated to several thousands of years. But Columbia University volcanologists found that the eruption of Costa Rica’s Irazú Volcano in 1963 was likely triggered by magma that took a route from the mantle over just a few months. The volcanic explosivity index is a scale, from 0 to 8 and it is used by the Smithsonian Institutions Global Volcanism Program in assessing the impact of historic and prehistoric lava flows. It operates in a way similar to the Richter scale for earthquakes, the vast majority of volcanic eruptions are of VEIs between 0 and 2. Volcanic eruptions by VEI index Magmatic eruptions produce juvenile clasts during explosive decompression from gas release, Hawaiian eruptions are a type of volcanic eruption, named after the Hawaiian volcanoes with which this eruptive type is hallmark. Hawaiian eruptions are the calmest types of events, characterized by the effusive eruption of very fluid basalt-type lavas with low gaseous content
15.
Earthquake Early Warning (Japan)
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The Earthquake Early Warning is a warning issued when an earthquake in Japan is detected. The warnings are issued mainly by the Japan Meteorological Agency, along with guidance on how to react to the warnings, the JMA has two Earthquake Early Warning schemes. One is for the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and the other is for the general public. When there is a P-wave detection from any two or more of the 4,235 seismometers installed throughout Japan, the JMA automatically analyzes and these rough predictions allow the JMA to warn people in affected prefectures through TV and radio if strong shaking is expected. An Earthquake Early Warning alert is issued to the public when an earthquake of Japan seismic scale 5-lower or higher is expected. The Earthquake Early Warning is set up to people in minimizing damages caused by an earthquake. Railway workers use this warning to slow down trains, and factory workers may use it to stop assembly lines before the shaking reaches them, the effectiveness of a warning depends on the position of the receiver. After receiving a warning, a person may have few seconds to a minute or more to take action, areas near the epicenter may experience strong tremors before any warning. After the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the warning system. Although the tsunami killed over 10,000 people, many people would have lost their lives without the early warning system. In April 2011, the Chilean Subsecretary of Telecommunications disclosed that they hope to establish a similar earthquake early warning system. The JMA announced the hit rate of the Earthquake Early Warning for the 2011 fiscal year on 31 May 2012. Fiscal year 2007, 75% Fiscal year 2008, 82% Fiscal year 2009, 76% Fiscal year 2010, 28% Fiscal year 2011, 56% For the fiscal years 2007 to 2009 the hit rate was over 75%. In fiscal year 2010 the hit rate came down to 28% due to the number of following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. The hit rate for that year had been 72% until the Tohoku earthquake, measurement techniques have subsequently been refined to ignore small scale earthquakes, the hit rate for fiscal year 2011 increased to 56%. The JMA aimed to increase the hit rate to over 85% in fiscal year 2015, fuji TV and TV Asahi both sound a set of chimes, but do not use a voice announcement. These alerts also inform viewers whether or not there is a risk of a landslide or tsunami caused by the quake in the affected area. If tsunami warnings are issued, the system utilizes 1seg to automatically turn on all radios, all warnings are broadcast in five languages, English, Mandarin, Korean and Portuguese, as well as Japanese
16.
Regional Specialized Meteorological Center
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In addition some WMO member countries that lacked extensive forecasting capability requested that specialized pollutant transport and dispersion forecasts be provided during these emergencies. As a result, during 1989 Meteo-France, Environment Canada and the United Kingdoms Met Office were all set up as RSMCs under interim arrangements between the WMO and the IAEA. Under these arrangements Meteo-France provided global coverage with the UKMO as the center until each WMO region had at least two RSMCs for transport model products. This resulted in the WMO regions RA and RA IV having two RSMCs each which indicated the need to revise the interim arrangements. The new arrangements came into force in August 1994, with EC and NOAA responsible for the Americas, while MF, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology was subsequently made an RSMC on July 1,1995, while the Japan Meteorological Agency was made one in July 1997. C. The United States National Hurricane Center is responsible for the tracking of tropical cyclones within the Atlantic Ocean, the Japan Meteorological Agency is responsible for issuing advisories within the Western Pacific basin. The India Meteorological Department is responsible for tracking tropical cyclones within the North Indian Ocean, météo-France La Reunion is responsible for the issuing advisories and tracking of tropical cyclones, however, the naming of systems is deferred to the Mauritius and Madagascar weather services. Within the Australian region five tropical cyclone warning centres are responsible for the naming and tracking of tropical cyclones, three of these centres are run by and located within the Australian Bureau of Meteorology regional offices in Perth, Darwin and Brisbane and use one national list of names. The other two tropical cyclone warning centres in the Australian region are located in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea and Jakarta, Indonesia
17.
World Meteorological Organization
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The World Meteorological Organization is an intergovernmental organization with a membership of 191 Member States and Territories. It originated from the International Meteorological Organization, which was founded in 1873 and its current Secretary-General is Petteri Taalas and the President of the World Meteorological Congresss, its supreme body, is David Grimes. The Organization is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Meteorological Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations. WMO has a membership of 191 Member States and Territories as of February 2014, the Convention of the World Meteorological Organization was signed 11 October 1947 and established upon ratification on 23 March 1950. WMO became the agency of the United Nations in 1951 for meteorology, operational hydrology. It originated from the International Meteorological Organization, which was founded in 1873, the WMO hierarchy, The World Meteorological Congress, the supreme body of the Organization, determines policy. Each member state and territory is represented by a Permanent Representative with WMO when Congress meets every four years, Congress elects the President and Vice-Presidents of the Organization and members of the Executive Council, and appoints the Secretary-General. The Executive Council implements Congress decisions, the Executive Council normally hold a session at least once a year. Six Regional Associations are responsible for the coordination of meteorological, hydrological and they meet once every four years, and elect a president and vice-president. The president of regional association is an ex officio member of the Executive Council. Eight Technical Commissions are responsible for studying meteorological and hydrological operational systems, applications and they establish methodology and procedures and make recommendations to Executive Council and the World Meteorological Congress. The Secretariat is headed by the Secretary-General, who is appointed by the World Meteorological Congress for a term with a maximum tenure of 8 years. The Secretary-General appoints all staff, including the Deputy Secretary-General and the Assistant Secretary-General, the Secretariat currently has around 300 staff. Weather, climate and the water cycle shape almost every aspect of our lives and these powerful natural forces do not recognize national borders, thus global and regional cooperation is essential. Even the accuracy of a weather forecast relies on observations from far beyond national borders. These warnings help to save lives and to protect property. They contribute to economic planning and decision-making, and help minimize the harm that weather, climate, the first step in producing weather forecasts is to gather non-stop observations of the environment from around the world. WMO develops the standards for designing these and other observing instruments and for ensuring that the collected data are quality controlled
18.
Tropical cyclone naming
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Tropical cyclones and subtropical cyclones are named by various warning centers to provide ease of communication between forecasters and the general public regarding forecasts, watches, and warnings. The names are intended to reduce confusion in the event of concurrent storms in the same basin, generally once storms produce sustained wind speeds of more than 33 knots, names are assigned in order from predetermined lists depending on which basin they originate. Before the formal start of naming, tropical cyclones were named after places, objects, the credit for the first usage of personal names for weather systems is generally given to the Queensland Government Meteorologist Clement Wragge, who named systems between 1887 and 1907. This system of naming weather systems subsequently fell into disuse for years after Wragge retired. Before the formal start of naming, tropical cyclones were named after places, objects. The credit for the first usage of names for weather systems is generally given to the Queensland Government Meteorologist Clement Wragge. This system of naming weather systems subsequently fell into disuse for years after Wragge retired until it was revived in the latter part of World War II for the Western Pacific. Formal naming schemes have subsequently introduced for the North Atlantic, Eastern, Central, Western and Southern Pacific basins as well as the Australian region. This is especially important when multiple storms are occurring simultaneously in the ocean basin. Names are generally assigned in order from predetermined lists, once they produce one, however, standards vary from basin to basin, with some systems named in the Western Pacific when they develop into tropical depressions or enter PAGASAs area of responsibility. Within the Southern Hemisphere, systems must be characterized by a significant amount of gale-force winds occurring around the center before they are named, PAGASA also retires the names of significant tropical cyclones when they have caused at least ₱1 billion in damage and/or have caused at least 300 deaths. There are six lists of names which rotate every six years and begin with the first letters A—W used, skipping Q and U, the names of significant tropical cyclones are retired from the lists, with a replacement name selected at the next World Meteorological Organizations Hurricane Committee meeting. If all of the names on a list are used, storms are named after the letters of the Greek alphabet, significant tropical cyclones have their names retired from the lists and a replacement name selected at the next World Meteorological Organization Hurricane Committee. When a tropical depression intensifies into a storm to the north of the Equator between the coastline of the Americas and 140°W, it will be named by the NHC. There are six lists of names which rotate every six years and begin with the letters A—Z used, skipping Q and U, the names of significant tropical cyclones are retired from the lists, with a replacement name selected at the next World Meteorological Organizations Hurricane Committee. If all of the names on a list are used, storms are named using the letters of the Greek alphabet, when a tropical depression intensifies into a tropical storm to the north of the Equator between 140°W and 180°, it is named by the CPHC. Significant tropical cyclones have their names retired from the lists, with a replacement name selected at the next Hurricane Committee meeting, Tropical cyclones that occur within the Northern Hemisphere between the anti-meridian and 100°E are officially named by the Japan Meteorological Agency when they become tropical storms. However, PAGASA also names tropical cyclones that occur or develop into tropical depressions within their area of responsibility between 5°N–25°N and 115°E-135°E
19.
Tropical cyclone
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Depending on its location and strength, a tropical cyclone is referred to by names such as hurricane, typhoon /taɪˈfuːn/, tropical storm, cyclonic storm, tropical depression, and simply cyclone. A hurricane is a storm that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Pacific Ocean, a typhoon occurs in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, Tropical cyclones typically form over large bodies of relatively warm water. They derive their energy through the evaporation of water from the ocean surface and this energy source differs from that of mid-latitude cyclonic storms, such as noreasters and European windstorms, which are fueled primarily by horizontal temperature contrasts. The strong rotating winds of a tropical cyclone are a result of the conservation of momentum imparted by the Earths rotation as air flows inwards toward the axis of rotation. As a result, they form within 5° of the equator. Tropical cyclones are typically between 100 and 2,000 km in diameter, Tropical refers to the geographical origin of these systems, which form almost exclusively over tropical seas. Cyclone refers to their nature, with wind blowing counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. The opposite direction of circulation is due to the Coriolis effect, in addition to strong winds and rain, tropical cyclones are capable of generating high waves, damaging storm surge, and tornadoes. They typically weaken rapidly over land where they are cut off from their energy source. For this reason, coastal regions are vulnerable to damage from a tropical cyclone as compared to inland regions. Heavy rains, however, can cause significant flooding inland, though their effects on human populations are often devastating, tropical cyclones can relieve drought conditions. They also carry heat away from the tropics and transport it toward temperate latitudes. Tropical cyclones are areas of low pressure in the troposphere. On Earth, the pressures recorded at the centers of tropical cyclones are among the lowest ever observed at sea level, the environment near the center of tropical cyclones is warmer than the surroundings at all altitudes, thus they are characterized as warm core systems. The near-surface wind field of a cyclone is characterized by air rotating rapidly around a center of circulation while also flowing radially inwards. At the outer edge of the storm, air may be nearly calm, however, due to the Earths rotation, as air flows radially inward, it begins to rotate cyclonically in order to conserve angular momentum. At an inner radius, air begins to ascend to the top of the troposphere and this radius is typically coincident with the inner radius of the eyewall, and has the strongest near-surface winds of the storm, consequently, it is known as the radius of maximum winds. Once aloft, air flows away from the center, producing a shield of cirrus clouds
20.
Pacific Ocean
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations
21.
Celebes Sea
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It extends 420 miles north-south by 520 mi east-west and has a total surface area of 110,000 square miles, to a maximum depth of 20,300 feet. The sea opens southwest through the Makassar Strait into the Java Sea, the Celebes Sea is a piece of an ancient ocean basin that formed 42 million years ago in a locale removed from any landmass. By 20 million years ago, earth crust movement had moved the basin close enough to the Indonesian and Philippine volcanoes to receive emitted debris. By 10 million years ago the Celebes Sea was inundated with continental debris, including coal, which was shed from a young mountain on Borneo. The border between the Celebes and the Sulu Sea is at the Sibutu-Basilan Ridge, strong ocean currents, deep sea trenches and seamounts, combined with active volcanic islands, result in complex oceanographic features. It has been agreed that north of the line will be under the jurisdiction of the Philippines. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the Celebes Sea as being one of the waters of the East Indian Archipelago, the IHO defines its limits as follows, On the North. The Southern limit of Sulu Sea and the Southwest coast of Mindanao, a line from Tinaca Point, the Southern point of Mindanao, to the North point of pulau Sangihe Besar thence through the pulau-pulau Sangihe to Tanjung Puisan, the Northeast extreme of Celebes. The North coast of Celebes between tanjung Puisan and tanjung Binar and thence a line to Tanjung Mangkalihat in Borneo, the Northern limit of Makassar Strait, the East coast of Borneo between Tanjung Mangkalihat and Tanjong Labian, the Southern limit of the Sulu Sea. The Celebes Sea is home to a variety of fish. Tuna and yellowfin tuna are also abundant, in addition to high abundance of fish caught in the Celebes sea, this sea also yields other aquatic products like sea tang. The Celebes Sea is an important sea route for regional trade, the sea is also popular for scuba diving and luxury ocean cruising. The Celebes Sea is underlain by a plate with a mid oceanic spreading in the center part. This place is subducted to the south and north, a number of seismic surveys and research drillings were done in this area to gather geological information. The geology of Sulawesi Sea has been described in the Geology of Indonesia Wikibook, exploring the Inner Space of the Celebes Sea 2007 - A rich collection of images, video and audio podcast
22.
Sulu Sea
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Borneo is found to the southwest and Visayas to the northeast. Sulu Sea contains a number of islands, the Cuyo Islands and Cagayan Sulu are part of the province of Palawan whereas Mapun and the Turtle Islands are part of the province of Tawi-Tawi. Sulu Sea is also where the Tubbataha Reef National Marine Park, the Panay Gulf is an extension of the Sulu Sea. The IHO defines its limits as follows, On the Northwest, from Tanjong Sempang Mangayau, the North point of Borneo, along the Eastern limit of South China Sea to Cape Calavite, the Northwest point of Mindoro. The North coast of Borneo between Tanjong Labian and Tanjong Sempang Mangayau, the Star Trek character Hikaru Sulu is named after the Sulu Sea. According to Sulu actor George Takei, Roddenberrys vision for Sulu was to represent all of Asia, in the radio serial Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, the Sulu Sea was the locale for the episodes of The Luminous Dragon Eye Ring. Sulu Pirates Media related to Sulu Sea at Wikimedia Commons
23.
South China Sea
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The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Karimata and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around 3,500,000 square kilometres. The areas importance largely results from one-third of the worlds shipping sailing through its waters, the sea and its mostly uninhabited islands are subject to competing claims of sovereignty by several countries. These claims are reflected in the variety of names used for the islands. South China Sea is the dominant term used in English for the sea, and this name is a result of early European interest in the sea as a route from Europe and South Asia to the trading opportunities of China. In the sixteenth century Portuguese sailors called it the China Sea, the International Hydrographic Organization refers to the sea as South China Sea. The Classic of Poetry, Zuo Zhuan, and Guoyu classics of the Spring and Autumn period also referred to the sea, Nan Hai, the South Sea, was one of the Four Seas of Chinese literature. There are three other seas, one for each of the four cardinal directions, during the Eastern Han dynasty, Chinas rulers called the Sea Zhang Hai. Fei Hai became popular during the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, usage of the current Chinese name, Nan Hai, became gradually widespread during the Qing Dynasty. In Southeast Asia it was called the Champa Sea or Sea of Cham. The majority of the sea came under Japanese naval control during World War II following the acquisition of many surrounding South East Asian territories in 1941. Japan calls the sea Minami Shina Kai South China Sea and this was written 南支那海 until 2004, when the Japanese Foreign Ministry and other departments switched the spelling 南シナ海, which has become the standard usage in Japan. In China, it is called the South Sea, 南海 Nánhǎi, in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, it was long called the South China Sea, with the part within Philippine territorial waters often called the Luzon Sea, Dagat Luzon, by the Philippines. However, following an escalation of the Spratly Islands dispute in 2011, a PAGASA spokesperson said that the sea to the east of the Philippines will continue to be called the Philippine Sea. In September 2012, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III signed Administrative Order No, states and territories with borders on the sea include, the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam. Major rivers that flow into the South China Sea include the Pearl, Min, Jiulong, Red, Mekong, Rajang, Pahang, Pampanga, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the South China Sea as follows, On the South. From Fuki Kaku the North point of Formosa to Kiushan Tao on to the South point of Haitan Tao, the Mainland, the Southern limit of the Gulf of Thailand and the East coast of the Malay Peninsula. The sea lies above a drowned continental shelf, during recent ice ages global sea level was hundreds of metres lower, the South China Sea opened around 45 million years ago when the Dangerous Ground rifted away from southern China. Extension culminated in seafloor spreading around 30 million years ago, a process that propagated to the SW resulting in the V-shaped basin we see today, extension ceased around 17 million years ago
24.
East China Sea
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The East China Sea is a marginal sea east of China. The East China Sea is a part of the Pacific Ocean, to the east lies the Japanese islands of Kyushu and the Ryukyu Islands, to the south lies the South China Sea, and to the west by the Asian continent. The sea connects with the Sea of Japan through the Korea Strait, the sovereign states which border the sea include South Korea, Japan, the Republic of China and the Peoples Republic of China. The East China Sea is a part of the Pacific Ocean and it is bounded on the east by Kyūshū and the Ryukyu Islands of Japan, on the south by the South China Sea, and on the west by the Asian continent. It connects with the Sea of Japan through the Korea Strait, it opens in the north to the Yellow Sea, states with borders on the sea include, South Korea, Japan, Republic of China and the Peoples Republic of China. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Eastern China Sea as follows, the Northern limit of the South China Sea, thence from Santyo the Northeastern point of Formosa to the West point of Yonakuni Island and thence to Haderuma Sima. The Yangtze River is the largest river flowing into the East China Sea, tong Island There is a cluster of submerged reefs in the northern East China Sea. These include, Socotra Rock, also called Suyan Rock or Ieodo, hupijiao Rock Yajiao Rock The sea is called the East Sea in Chinese, being one of the Four Seas of Chinese literature. There are three other seas, one for each of the four cardinal directions, until World War II, the sea was referred to as 東支那海 in Japanese. In 2004, official documents of the Japanese Foreign Ministry and other departments switched to the name 東シナ海, common usage in Indonesia refers to the sea as Laut Cina Timur. Despite this, many Indonesian media outlets and publications continue to use the sea name. American whaleships cruised for whales in the sea between 1849 and 1892. There are disputes between the Peoples Republic of China, Japan, and South Korea over the extent of their exclusive economic zones. The dispute between the PRC and Japan concerns the different application of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, China and Japan both claim 200 nautical miles EEZ rights, but the East China Sea width is only 360 nautical miles. China proposed the application of UNCLOS, considering the natural prolongation of its continental shelf, in 2012, China presented a submission under the UNCLOS concerning the outer limits of the continental shelf to the UN. Japan has objected to PRC development of gas resources in the East China Sea near the area where the two countries Exclusive Economic Zone claims overlap. The specific development in dispute is the PRCs drilling in the Chunxiao gas field, Japan therefore seeks a share in the natural gas resources. The gas fields in the Xihu Sag area in the East China Sea are estimated to hold reserves of 364 BCF of natural gas
25.
Yellow Sea
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The Yellow Sea is the name given to the northern part of the East China Sea, which is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It is located between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula and its name comes from the sand particles from Gobi Desert sand storms that turn the surface of the water golden yellow. The innermost bay of the Yellow Sea is called the Bohai Sea, into it flow both the Yellow River and Hai He. Deposits of sand and silt from those rivers contribute to the sea colour, the northern extension of the Yellow Sea is called the Korea Bay. The Yellow Sea is one of four seas named after common colour terms — the others being the Black Sea, the Red Sea, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Yellow Sea as follows, On the South. The parallel of 33°17 North from Saisyu To to the mainland. The Yellow Sea, excluding the Bohai, extends by about 960 km from north to south and about 700 km from east to west, it has an area of about 380,000 km2 and the volume of about 17,000 km3. Its depth is only 44 m on average, with a maximum of 152 m, the sea is a flooded section of continental shelf that formed after the last ice age as sea levels rose 120 m to their current levels. The sea bottom is slowly rising toward China and more rapidly at the Korean Peninsula, the depth gradually increases from north to south. The sea bottom and shores are dominated by sand and silt brought by the rivers through the Bohai Sea and those deposits, together with sand storms are responsible for the yellow water color and the sea name. The area has cold, dry winters with strong northerly monsoons blowing from late November to March, average January temperatures are −10 °C in the north and 3 °C in the south. Summers are wet and warm with frequent typhoons between June and October, air temperatures range between 10 and 28 °C. The average annual precipitation increases from about 500 mm in the north to 1,000 mm in the south, fog is frequent along the coasts, especially in the upwelling cold-water areas. The sea has a warm cyclone current and it is a part of the Kuroshio Current, which diverges near the western part of Japan and flows northward into the Yellow Sea at the speed of below 0.8 km/h. Southward currents prevail near the sea coast, especially in the monsoon period. The water temperature is close to freezing in the part in winter, so drift ice patches and continuous ice fields form. The water temperature and salinity are homogeneous across the depth, the southern waters are warmer at 6–8 °C. In spring and summer, the layer is warmed up by the sun and diluted by the fresh water from rivers, while the deeper water remains cold
26.
Sea of Japan
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The Sea of Japan is a marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, and the Asian mainland. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean and it is bordered by Japan, North Korea, Russia and South Korea. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific Ocean and this isolation also reflects in the fauna species and in the water salinity, which is lower than in the ocean. The sea has no islands, bays or capes. Its water balance is determined by the inflow and outflow through the straits connecting it to the neighboring seas. Few rivers discharge into the sea and their contribution to the water exchange is within 1%. The seawater has a concentration of dissolved oxygen that results in high biological productivity. Therefore, fishing is the dominant economic activity in the region, the intensity of shipments across the sea has been moderate owing to political issues, but it is steadily increasing as a result of the growth of East Asian economies. The sea is called Rìběn hǎi or originally Jīng hǎi in China, Yaponskoye more in Russia, Chosŏn Tonghae in North Korea, a naming dispute exists about the sea name, with South and North Korea promoting the English translation of its native name East Sea. In Europe, the sea is called Mer du Japon in French, Japanisches Meer in German, Mar del Giappone in Italian, in Southeast Asia, the sea is called Laut Jepun in Malay, Laut Jepang in Indonesian, and Dagat Hapon in Filipino. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Japan Sea as follows, the Northeastern limit of the Eastern China Sea and the Western limit of the Inland Sea. A line running from Nagoya Saki in Kyûsyû through the islands of Uma Sima, from the extremity of Siriya Saki to the extremity of Esan Saki. A line joining Sôni Misaki and Nishi Notoro Misaki, from Cape Tuik to Cape Sushcheva. The Sea of Japan was once a landlocked sea when the bridge of East Asia existed. The onset of formation of the Japan Arc was in Early Miocene, the Early Miocene period also corresponds to incipient opening of the Japan Sea, and the northern and southern parts of the Japanese archipelago that were separated from each other. During the Miocene, there was expansion of Sea of Japan, the northern part of the Japanese archipelago was further fragmented at later periods until the orogenesis of the northeastern Japanese archipelago began in the later Late Miocene. The southern part of the Japanese archipelago remained as a large landmass. The land area had expanded northward in the Late Miocene, the orogenesis of high mountain ranges in the northeastern Japan started in Late Miocene and it lasts in Pliocene also
27.
Sea of Okhotsk
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The northeast corner is the Shelikhov Gulf. The sea is named after Okhotsk, the first Russian settlement in the Far East, the Sea of Okhotsk covers an area of 1,583,000 square kilometres, with a mean depth of 859 metres and a maximum depth of 3,372 metres. It is connected to the Sea of Japan on either side of Sakhalin, on the west through the Sakhalin Gulf, the distribution and thickness of ice floes depends on many factors, the location, the time of year, water currents, and the sea temperatures. With the exception of Hokkaido, one of the Japanese home islands, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Sea of Okhotsk as follows, On the Southwest. The Northeastern and Northern limits on the Japan Sea, some of the Sea of Okhotsks islands are quite large, including Japans second largest island, Hokkaido, as well as Russias largest island, Sakhalin. Practically all of the islands are either in coastal waters or belong to the various islands making up the Kuril Islands chain. These fall either under undisputed Japanese or Russian ownership or disputed ownership between Japan and Russia, iony Island is the only island located in open waters and belongs to the Khabarovsk Krai of the Russian Federation. The majority of the islands are uninhabited making them ideal breeding grounds for seals, sea lions, seabirds. Large colonies, with over an individuals, of crested auklets use the Sea of Okhotsk as a nesting site. The Okhotsk culture is a coastal fishing and hunter-gatherer culture of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk. Some believe that Mishihase was living in the area, Russian explorers Ivan Moskvitin and Vassili Poyarkov were the first Europeans to visit the Sea of Okhotsk in the 1640s. The first and foremost Russian settlement on the shore was the port of Okhotsk, the Russian-American Company all but monopolized the commercial navigation of the sea in the first half of the 19th century. The Second Kamchatka Expedition under Vitus Bering systematically mapped the entire coast of the sea, jean-François de La Pérouse and William Robert Broughton were the first non-Russian European navigators known to have passed through these waters other than Maarten Gerritsz Vries. Ivan Krusenstern explored the eastern coast of Sakhalin in 1805, mamiya Rinzō and Gennady Nevelskoy determined that the Sakhalin was indeed an island separated from the mainland by a narrow strait. The first detailed summary of the hydrology of the Okhotsk sea was prepared and published by Stepan Makarov in 1894, American and French whaleships, as well as a few German, Russian, and British, hunted whales in the Sea of Okhotsk between 1845 and 1907. They primarily caught right whales and bowhead whales, the former in the half of the sea. Bowheads were first caught in 1847, and dominated the catch between 1849 and the late 1860s, beginning in the mid-1850s they caught the occasional gray whale, and made attempts to catch humpback, fin, blue and killer whales as well but were rarely successful. Beluga whales were also taken opportunistically, from 1854 to 1856, an average of nearly 150 vessels cruised in the sea each year
28.
Hakodate, Hokkaido
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Hakodate is a city and port located in Oshima Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. It is the city of Oshima Subprefecture. As of July 31,2011, the city has an population of 279,851 with 143,221 households. The total area is 677.77 km2, the city is now the third biggest in Hokkaido after Sapporo and Asahikawa. Hakodate was Japans first city whose port was opened to trade in 1854 as a result of Convention of Kanagawa. Also, the city had been the biggest city in Hokkaido before the Great Hakodate Fire of 1934, Hakodate was founded in 1454, when Kono Kaganokami Masamichi constructed a large manor house in the Ainu fishing village of Usukeshi. There was constant low level conflict in the Oshima peninsula at the time with the Ainu as armed merchants like the Kono family established bases to trade in the region. This conflict culminated in an uprising from 1669 to 1672, led by Ainu warrior Shakushain after which the Ainu in the region were suppressed, Hakodate flourished during the Hoei period and many new temples were founded in the area. In 1779, the Tokugawa shogunate took direct control over Hakodate, merchant Takadaya Kahei, who is honoured as the founder of Hakodate port, set up trading operations, which included opening the northern Etorofu sea route to the Kuril island fisheries. He is credited with turning Hakodate from a trading outpost into a thriving city, a Hakodate magistracy was established in 1802. The port of Hakodate was surveyed by a fleet of five U. S. ships in 1854 under the conditions of the Convention of Kanagawa, as negotiated by Commodore Matthew Perry. S. A mariner in Perrys fleet died during a visit to the area and he stayed in Hakodate until 1884, during which time he documented the local natural environment, equipped the local meteorological station and ran guns to the Boshin War rebels. As one of few points of Japanese contact with the outside world, the Russian consulate included a chapel from where Nicholas of Japan is credited with introducing Eastern Orthodox Christianity to Japan in 1861. The Orthodox church is neighbored by several other historical missionary churches, including Anglican, Hakodate also played a central role in the Boshin War between the Tokugawa shogunate and the Meiji Emperor which followed Perrys opening of Japan. Shogunate rebel Enomoto Takeaki fled to Hakodate with the remnants of his navy and his handful of French advisers in winter 1868 and they formally established the Republic of Ezo on December 25. The republic tried unsuccessfully to gather international recognition to foreign legations in Hakodate, including the Americans, French, the rebels occupied Hakodates famous European-style Goryōkaku fort and used it as the centre of their defences in southern Hokkaido. Government forces defeated the secessionists in the Battle of Hakodate in 1869, military leader, Hijikata Toshizō, was one of those slain in the fighting. In 1878, Isabella Bird reported of the city in her travelogue, The streets are wide and clean
29.
Hokkaido
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Hokkaido, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is the second largest island of Japan, and the largest and northernmost prefecture. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel. The largest city on Hokkaido is its capital, Sapporo, which is also its only ordinance-designated city, about 43 km north of Hokkaido lies Sakhalin island, Russia, whereas to its east and north-east are the disputed Kuril Islands. Hokkaido was settled by the Ainu, Nivkh, and Orok before recorded history, the Nihon Shoki, finished in 720 AD, is often said to be the first mention of Hokkaido in recorded history. According to the text, Abe no Hirafu led a navy and army to northern areas from 658 to 660 and came into contact with the Mishihase. One of the places Hirafu went to was called Watarishima, which is believed to be present-day Hokkaido. During the Nara and Heian periods, people in Hokkaido conducted trade with Dewa Province, from the Middle Ages, the people in Hokkaido began to be called Ezo. Hokkaido, formerly known as Ezochi Ezochi or Ezogashima, the Ezo mainly relied upon hunting and fishing and obtained rice and iron through trade with the Japanese. During the Muromachi period, the Japanese created a settlement at the south of the Oshima Peninsula, as more people moved to the settlement to avoid battles, disputes arose between the Japanese and the Ainu. The disputes eventually developed into a war, takeda Nobuhiro killed the Ainu leader, Koshamain, and defeated the opposition in 1457. Nobuhiros descendants became the rulers of the Matsumae-han, which was granted trading rights with the Ainu in the Azuchi-Momoyama. The Matsumae familys economy relied upon trade with the Ainu and they held authority over the south of Ezochi until the end of the Edo period in 1868. The Matsumae clan rule over the Ainu must be understood in the context of the expansion of the Japanese feudal state, medieval military leaders in northern Honshū maintained only tenuous political and cultural ties to the imperial court and its proxies, the Kamakura Shogunate and Ashikaga Shogunate. Feudal strongmen sometimes located themselves within medieval institutional order, taking shogunal titles, in fact many of the feudal strongmen were descended from Emishi military leaders who had been assimilated into Japanese society. The Matsumae clan were of Yamato descent like other ethnic Japanese people, the Emishi were conquered and integrated into the Japanese state dating back as far as the 8th century, and as result began to lose their distinctive culture and ethnicity as they became minorities. By the time the Matsumae clan ruled over the Ainu most of the Emishi were ethnically mixed, there were numerous revolts by the Ainu against feudal rule. The last large-scale resistance was Shakushains Revolt in 1669–1672, in 1789, a smaller movement, the Menashi-Kunashir Rebellion, was also crushed. After that rebellion the terms Japanese and Ainu referred to clearly distinguished groups, in 1799–1821 and 1855–1858 the Edo Shogunate took direct control over Hokkaido in response to a perceived threat from Russia
30.
Home Ministry
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The Home Ministry was a Cabinet-level ministry established under the Meiji Constitution that managed the internal affairs of Empire of Japan from 1873-1947. Its duties included local administration, police, public works and elections, after the Meiji Restoration, the leaders of the new Meiji government envisioned a highly centralized state to replace the old feudal order. In 1874, administration of the post office was added to its responsibilities, in 1877, overview of religious institutes was added. The head of the Home Ministry was referred to as the Home Lord, the Home Ministry also initially had the responsibility for promoting local industry, but this duty was taken over by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce in 1881. In 1885, with the establishment of the system, the Home Ministry was reorganized by Yamagata Aritomo. The administration of Hokkaidō and Karafuto Prefectures also fell under the jurisdiction of the Home Ministry. In 1890, the Railroad Ministry and in 1892, the Communications Ministry were created, on the other hand, with the establishment of State Shinto, a Department of Religious Affairs was added to the Home Ministry in 1900. Following the High Treason Incident, the Tokko special police force was created in 1911. The Department of Religious Affairs was transferred to the Ministry of Education in 1913, from the 1920s period, faced with the growing issues of agrarian unrest and Bolshvik-inspired labor unrest, the attention of the Home Ministry was increasingly focused on internal security issues. The power of the Tokkō was expanded tremendously, and it expanded to branches in every Japanese prefecture, major city. The public health functions of the Ministry were separated into the Ministry of Health in 1938, the new Jōhōkyoku had complete control over all news, advertising and public events. In February 1941 it distributed among editors a black list of writers whose articles they were advised not to print anymore, in 1942, the Ministry of Colonial Affairs was abolished, and the Home Ministry extended its influence to Japanese external territories. After the surrender of Japan, the Home Ministry coordinated closely with the Allied occupation forces to maintain order in occupied Japan. The intention was officially to contain the sexual urges of the forces, protect the main Japanese populace from rape. Many of the employees of the Home Ministry were purged from office, the Rise of Modern Japan, Political, Economic, and Social Change since 1850. Samuels, Richard J. Rich Nation, Strong Army, National Security, Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation 1868-2000. National Archives of Japan, Illustrations of Road to Nikko, scroll purchased by Home Ministry -- see ministry seal in red
31.
Moat
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A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams. In older fortifications, such as hillforts, they are referred to simply as ditches. In later periods, moats or water defences may be largely ornamental and they could also act as sewerage. Some of the earliest evidence of moats has been uncovered around ancient Egyptian castles, one example is at Buhen, a castle excavated in Nubia. Other evidence of ancient moats is found in the ruins of Babylon, and in reliefs from ancient Egypt, Assyria, and other cultures in the region. Evidence of early moats around settlements has been discovered in archaeological sites throughout Southeast Asia, including Noen U-Loke, Ban Non Khrua Chut, Ban Makham Thae. The use of the moats could have been either for defensive or agriculture purposes, moats were excavated around castles and other fortifications as part of the defensive system as an obstacle immediately outside the walls. In suitable locations they might be filled with water, a moat made access to the walls difficult for siege weapons, such as siege towers and battering rams, which needed to be brought up against a wall to be effective. A water-filled moat made the practice of mining, digging tunnels under the castles in order to effect a collapse of the defences, segmented moats have one dry section and one section filled with water. Dry moats cut across the part of a spur or peninsula are called neck ditches. Moats separating different elements of a castle, such as the inner and outer wards are cross ditches, the shared derivation implies that the two features were closely related and possibly constructed at the same time. The term moat is also applied to natural formations reminiscent of the artificial structure, the walls were further protected from infantry attack by wet or dry moats, sometimes in elaborate systems. When this style of fortification was superseded by lines of forts in the mid-19th century. The Walls of Benin were a combination of ramparts and moats, called Iya and it was considered the largest man-made structure lengthwise, second only to the Great Wall of China and the largest earthwork in the world. With more recent work by Patrick Darling, it has established as the largest man-made structure in the world. It enclosed 6,500 km² of community lands and its length was over 16,000 km of earth boundaries. It was estimated that earliest construction began in 800 and continued into the mid-15th century, the walls are built of a ditch and dike structure, the ditch dug to form an inner moat with the excavated earth used to form the exterior rampart
32.
Tokyo Imperial Palace
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The Tokyo Imperial Palace is the primary residence of the Emperor of Japan. It is built on the site of the old Edo Castle, the total area including the gardens is 3.41 square kilometres. During the height of the 1980s Japanese property bubble, the grounds were valued by some to be more than the value of all of the real estate in the state of California. After the capitulation of the shogunate and the Meiji Restoration, the inhabitants, leaving the Kyoto Imperial Palace on 26 November 1868, the Emperor arrived at the Edo Castle, made it to his new residence and renamed it to Tōkei Castle. At this time Tōkyō had also been called Tōkei and he left for Kyōto again, and after coming back on 9 May 1869, it was renamed to Imperial Castle. Previous fires had destroyed the Honmaru area containing the old donjon, on the night of 5 May 1873, a fire consumed the Nishinomaru Palace, and the new imperial Palace Castle was constructed on the site in 1888. A non-profit Rebuilding Edo-jo Association was founded in 2004 with the aim of a historically correct reconstruction of at least the main donjon, a reconstruction blueprint had been made based on old documents. The Imperial Household Agency at the time had not indicated whether it would support the project, in the Meiji era, most structures from the Edo Castle disappeared. Some were cleared to make way for other buildings while others were destroyed by earthquakes, for example, the wooden double bridges over the moat were replaced with stone and iron bridges. The buildings of the Imperial Palace constructed in the Meiji era were constructed of wood and their design employed traditional Japanese architecture in their exterior appearance while the interiors were an eclectic mixture of then-fashionable Japanese and European elements. The ceilings of the chambers were coffered with Japanese elements, however, Western chairs, tables. The floors of the rooms had parquets or carpets while the residential spaces used traditional tatami mats. The main audience hall was the part of the palace. It was the largest building in the compound, guests were received there for public events. The floor space was more than 223 tsubo or approximately 737.25 m2, in the interior, the coffered ceiling was traditional Japanese-style, while the floor was parquetry. The roof was styled similarly to the Kyoto Imperial Palace, but was covered with copper plates rather than Japanese cypress shingles, in the late Taishō and early Shōwa period, more concrete buildings were added, such as the headquarters of the Imperial Household Ministry and the Privy Council. These structures exhibited only token Japanese elements, from 1888 to 1948, the compound was called Palace Castle. On the night of 25 May 1945, most structures of the Imperial Palace were destroyed in the Allied firebombing raid on Tokyo
33.
Toranomon
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Toranomon is a business district of Minato, Tokyo. Literally meaning Tigers Gate, Toranomon was the name of the southernmost gate of Edo Castle, the gate existed until the 1870s when it was demolished to make way for modern developments. The Toranomon Incident was an attempt on the Prince Regent Hirohito of Japan on 27 December 1923 by communist agitator Daisuke Namba. The district is home to corporate headquarters. From the 1970s through the mid-1990s Japan Air System was headquartered in the Mori Building in Toranomon, Air China has its Tokyo offices in the Air China Building in Toranomon. TV Tokyo, Japan Tobacco, Fuji Fire and Marine Insurance, lines have their headquarters in Toranomon. The Okura Museum of Art and Hotel Okura Tokyo are also located in Toranomon, nihonbashi, Tokyo Media related to Toranomon at Wikimedia Commons
34.
Minato, Tokyo
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Minato is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. It is also called Minato City in English, as of 1 July 2015, it has an official population of 243,094, and a population density of 10,850 persons per km². The total area is 20.37 km², Minato hosts a large number of embassies. It is also home to domestic companies, including Honda, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, NEC, Sony, Fujitsu, and Toshiba, as well as the Japanese headquarters of a number of firms, including Google, Apple. Minato is located southwest of the Imperial Palace and has boundaries with the wards of Chiyoda, Chūō, Kōtō, Shinagawa, Shibuya. The ward was founded on March 15,1947 with the merger of Akasaka, Azabu, Minato is governed by mayor Masaaki Takei, an Independent supported by all major parties except the Japanese Communist Party. The city legislative assembly has 51 members and is dominated by the Liberal Democratic Party, Mita Junior High School opened in 2001 after the merger of Minato Junior High School and Shibahama Junior High School. The local public schools are operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Board of Education. Akasaka High School Mita High School Roppongi High School Shiba Commercial High School There are also a variety of schools, including, Friends School. The metropolis operates the Tokyo Metropolitan Library Central Library in Minato, in addition ANA subsidiary Air Japan has some offices in Minato. The Japanese division of CB&I, the Japanese division of Aramark and Aim Services, Google Japan, Japan, and the main Japanese offices of Hanjin and Korean Air are located there. Air France operates an office and ticketing counter in the New Aoyama Building in Minato, the Japanese division of Deutsche Post, DHL. Air Frances Minato office handles Aircalin-related inquiries, Air China has operations in the Air China Building in Minato. Asiana Airlines operates an office on the sixth floor of the ATT New Tower Building. Hawaiian Airlines has its Japan offices in the Eagle Hamamatsuchō Building in Minato, iran Air has its Tokyo office in Akasaka. Previously operations were at the World Trade Center in Minato, several countries operate their embassies in Minato. Aoyama, Home to Aoyama Cemetery, one of Tokyos largest graveyards, atago Shrine, the highest point in all 23 wards of Tokyo
35.
Earthquake
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An earthquake is the shaking of the surface of the Earth, resulting from the sudden release of energy in the Earths lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in size from those that are so weak that they cannot be felt to those violent enough to people around. The seismicity or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type, Earthquakes are measured using measurements from seismometers. The moment magnitude is the most common scale on which earthquakes larger than approximately 5 are reported for the entire globe and these two scales are numerically similar over their range of validity. Magnitude 3 or lower earthquakes are mostly imperceptible or weak and magnitude 7 and over potentially cause damage over larger areas. The largest earthquakes in historic times have been of magnitude slightly over 9, intensity of shaking is measured on the modified Mercalli scale. The shallower an earthquake, the damage to structures it causes. At the Earths surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by shaking and sometimes displacement of the ground, when the epicenter of a large earthquake is located offshore, the seabed may be displaced sufficiently to cause a tsunami. Earthquakes can also trigger landslides, and occasionally volcanic activity, in its most general sense, the word earthquake is used to describe any seismic event — whether natural or caused by humans — that generates seismic waves. Earthquakes are caused mostly by rupture of faults, but also by other events such as volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts. An earthquakes point of rupture is called its focus or hypocenter. The epicenter is the point at ground level directly above the hypocenter, tectonic earthquakes occur anywhere in the earth where there is sufficient stored elastic strain energy to drive fracture propagation along a fault plane. The sides of a fault move past each other smoothly and aseismically only if there are no irregularities or asperities along the surface that increase the frictional resistance. Most fault surfaces do have such asperities and this leads to a form of stick-slip behavior, once the fault has locked, continued relative motion between the plates leads to increasing stress and therefore, stored strain energy in the volume around the fault surface. This continues until the stress has risen sufficiently to break through the asperity, suddenly allowing sliding over the portion of the fault. This energy is released as a combination of radiated elastic strain seismic waves, frictional heating of the fault surface and this process of gradual build-up of strain and stress punctuated by occasional sudden earthquake failure is referred to as the elastic-rebound theory. It is estimated that only 10 percent or less of a total energy is radiated as seismic energy. Most of the energy is used to power the earthquake fracture growth or is converted into heat generated by friction
36.
Tsunami
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A tsunami or tidal wave, also known as a seismic sea wave, is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Unlike normal ocean waves which are generated by wind, or tides which are generated by the pull of the Moon and Sun. Tsunami waves do not resemble normal undersea currents or sea waves, Tsunamis generally consist of a series of waves with periods ranging from minutes to hours, arriving in a so-called internal wave train. Wave heights of tens of metres can be generated by large events, numerous terms are used in the English language to describe waves created in a body of water by the displacement of water, however, none of the terms in frequent use are entirely accurate. The term tsunami, meaning harbour wave in literal translation, comes from the Japanese 津波, while not entirely accurate, as tsunami are not restricted to harbours, tsunami is currently the term most widely accepted by geologists and oceanographers. Tsunami are sometimes referred to as tidal waves and this once-popular term derives from the most common appearance of tsunami, which is that of an extraordinarily high tidal bore. Although the meanings of tidal include resembling or having the form or character of the tides, use of the tidal wave is discouraged by geologists. The term seismic sea wave also is used to refer to the phenomenon, prior to the rise of the use of the term tsunami in English-speaking countries, scientists generally encouraged the use of the term seismic sea wave rather than tidal wave. The Sumatran region is not unused to tsunamis either, with earthquakes of varying magnitudes regularly occurring off the coast of the island, Tsunamis are an often underestimated hazard in the Mediterranean Sea and parts of Europe. The tsunami claimed more than 123,000 lives in Sicily, the Storegga Slide in the Norwegian sea and some examples of tsunamis affecting the British Isles refer to landslide and meteotsunamis predominantly and less to earthquake-induced waves. The cause, in my opinion, of this phenomenon must be sought in the earthquake, at the point where its shock has been the most violent the sea is driven back, and suddenly recoiling with redoubled force, causes the inundation. Without an earthquake I do not see how such an accident could happen, the principal generation mechanism of a tsunami is the displacement of a substantial volume of water or perturbation of the sea. This displacement of water is attributed to either earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, glacier calvings or more rarely by meteorites. The waves formed in this way are then sustained by gravity, tides do not play any part in the generation of tsunamis. Tsunami can be generated when the sea floor abruptly deforms and vertically displaces the overlying water and they grow in height when they reach shallower water, in a wave shoaling process described below. A tsunami can occur in any state and even at low tide can still inundate coastal areas. On April 1,1946, the 8.6 Mw Aleutian Islands earthquake occurred with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VI and it generated a tsunami which inundated Hilo on the island of Hawaii with a 14-metre high surge. Between 165 and 173 were killed, the area where the earthquake occurred is where the Pacific Ocean floor is subducting under Alaska
37.
Typhoon
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A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops in the western part of the North Pacific Ocean between 180° and 100°E. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, for organizational purposes, the northern Pacific Ocean is divided into three regions, the eastern, central, and western. While the RSMC names each system, the name list itself is coordinated among 18 countries that have territories threatened by typhoons each year. Only the Philippines use their own naming list for systems approaching the country, a typhoon differs from a cyclone or hurricane only on the basis of location. A hurricane is a storm that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Pacific Ocean, a typhoon occurs in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, within the northwestern Pacific there are no official typhoon seasons as tropical cyclones form throughout the year. While the majority of storms form between June and November, a few storms do occur between December and May, on average, the northwestern Pacific features the most numerous and intense tropical cyclones globally. Like other basins, they are steered by the ridge towards the west or northwest, with some systems recurving near. The Philippines receive the brunt of the landfalls, with China, some of the deadliest typhoons in history have struck China. Southern China has the longest record of typhoon impacts for the region, Taiwan has received the wettest known typhoon on record for the northwest Pacific tropical cyclone basins. The term typhoon is the name in the northwest Pacific for a severe tropical cyclone, whereas hurricane is the regional term in the northeast Pacific. Elsewhere this is called a cyclone, severe tropical cyclone. The Oxford English Dictionary cites Urdu ṭūfān and Chinese tai fung giving rise to early forms in English. The earliest forms -- touffon, later tufan, tuffon, and others -- derive from Urdu ṭūfān, from 1699 appears tuffoon, later tiffoon, derived from Chinese with spelling influenced by the older Urdu-derived forms. The modern spelling dates to 1820, preceded by tay-fun in 1771 and ty-foong. The Urdu source word توفان ṭūfān comes via Persian from Arabic طوفان, the Chinese source is the word tai fung, cited as a common dialect form of Mandarin dà big and fēng wind. In Mandarin the word for the windstorm is 大风 and in Cantonese 大風, the modern Japanese word is also derived from Chinese, 台風. The first character in Japanese has a modern meaning of pedestal or stand. So the Japanese characters originally had a meaning of typhoon wind, the Ancient Greek Τυφῶν is not unrelated and has secondarily contaminated the word
38.
Weather satellite
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The weather satellite is a type of satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. Satellites can be polar orbiting, covering the entire Earth asynchronously, or geostationary, Meteorological satellites see more than clouds and cloud systems. City lights, fires, effects of pollution, auroras, sand and dust storms, snow cover, ice mapping, boundaries of currents, energy flows. Other types of information are collected using weather satellites. Weather satellite images helped in monitoring the volcanic ash cloud from Mount St. Helens, smoke from fires in the western United States such as Colorado and Utah have also been monitored. Other environmental satellites can detect changes in the Earths vegetation, sea state, ocean color, El Niño and its effects on weather are monitored daily from satellite images. The Antarctic ozone hole is mapped from weather satellite data, collectively, weather satellites flown by the U. S. Europe, India, China, Russia, and Japan provide nearly continuous observations for a global weather watch. As early as 1946, the idea of cameras in orbit to observe the weather was being developed and this was due to sparse data observation coverage and the expense of using cloud cameras on rockets. By 1958, the prototypes for TIROS and Vanguard were created. The first weather satellite, Vanguard 2, was launched on February 17,1959 and it was designed to measure cloud cover and resistance, but a poor axis of rotation and its elliptical orbit kept it from collecting a notable amount of useful data. The Explorer VI and VII satellites also contained weather-related experiments, the first weather satellite to be considered a success was TIROS-1, launched by NASA on April 1,1960. TIROS operated for 78 days and proved to be more successful than Vanguard 2. TIROS paved the way for the Nimbus program, whose technology and findings are the heritage of most of the Earth-observing satellites NASA, the ESSA and NOAA polar orbiting satellites followed suit from the late 1960s onward. Geostationary satellites followed, beginning with the ATS and SMS series in the late 1960s and early 1970s, observation is typically made via different channels of the electromagnetic spectrum, in particular, the visible and infrared portions. Some of these channels include Visible and Near Infrared,0.6 μm –1.6 μm – For recording cloud cover during the day Infrared,3.9 μm –7.3 μm,8.7 μm, –13. Even wind can be determined by cloud patterns, alignments and movement from successive photos, Infrared pictures depict ocean eddies or vortices and map currents such as the Gulf Stream which are valuable to the shipping industry. Fishermen and farmers are interested in knowing land and water temperatures to protect their crops against frost or increase their catch from the sea, even El Niño phenomena can be spotted. Using color-digitized techniques, the gray shaded thermal images can be converted to color for easier identification of desired information, each meteorological satellite is designed to use one of two different classes of orbit, geostationary and polar orbiting
39.
Himawari (satellite)
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The Himawari geostationary satellites, operated by the Japan Meteorological Agency, support weather forecasting, tropical cyclone tracking, and meteorology research. Most meteorological agencies in East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, since the launch of GMS-1 in 1977, there have been three generations, including GMS, MTSAT, and Himawari 8/9. Himawari 8 and MTSAT-2 satellites are available for operational use. Japan Meteorological Agency Satellite Imagery from the Japan Meteorological Agency Meteorological Satellite Center of JMA
40.
Automated meteorological data acquisition system
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The system began operating on November 1,1974, and currently comprises 1,300 stations throughout Japan, with an average separation of 17 km. All of these are observed automatically, at unmanned stations, observations are performed every 10 minutes. About 700 of the unmanned stations observe precipitation, air temperature, wind direction and speed, for about 280 stations located in areas of heavy snowfall, snow depth is also observed. All the observational data is transmitted to the AMeDAS Center at JMA Headquarters in Tokyo on a time basis via dedicated telephone lines. The data is delivered to the whole country after a quality check. As well as weather conditions, AMeDAS is also used in the observation of natural disasters, temporary observation points are set up in areas where there are signs of volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. Mesonet Japan Meteorological Agency observations descriptions
41.
Weather radar
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Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type. Modern weather radars are mostly pulse-Doppler radars, capable of detecting the motion of rain droplets in addition to the intensity of the precipitation, both types of data can be analyzed to determine the structure of storms and their potential to cause severe weather. During World War II, radar operators discovered that weather was causing echoes on their screen, techniques were developed to filter them, but scientists began to study the phenomenon. Soon after the war, surplus radars were used to detect precipitation, since then, weather radar has evolved on its own and is now used by national weather services, research departments in universities, and in television newscasts. Raw images are used and specialized software can take radar data to make short term forecasts of future positions and intensities of rain, snow, hail. Radar output is even incorporated into weather prediction models to improve analyses. During World War II, military radar operators noticed noise in returned echoes due to rain, snow, after the war, military scientists returned to civilian life or continued in the Armed Forces and pursued their work in developing a use for those echoes. In the United States, David Atlas, at first working for the Air Force and later for MIT, Marshall and R. H. Douglas formed the Stormy Weather Group in Montreal. By 1950 the UK company EKCO was demonstrating its airborne cloud, in 1953 Donald Staggs, an electrical engineer working for the Illinois State Water Survey, made the first recorded radar observation of a hook echo associated with a tornadic thunderstorm. Between 1950 and 1980, reflectivity radars, which measure position, the early meteorologists had to watch a cathode ray tube. During the 1970s, radars began to be standardized and organized into networks, the first devices to capture radar images were developed. The number of scanned angles was increased to get a view of the precipitation, so that horizontal cross-sections. Studies of the organization of thunderstorms were then possible for the Alberta Hail Project in Canada, the NSSL, created in 1964, began experimentation on dual polarization signals and on Doppler effect uses. In May 1973, a tornado devastated Union City, Oklahoma, for the first time, a Dopplerized 10 cm wavelength radar from NSSL documented the entire life cycle of the tornado. The researchers discovered a mesoscale rotation in the cloud aloft before the tornado touched the ground – the tornadic vortex signature, NSSLs research helped convince the National Weather Service that Doppler radar was a crucial forecasting tool. The Super Outbreak of tornadoes on 3–4 April 1974 and their devastating destruction might have helped to get funding for further developments, between 1980 and 2000, weather radar networks became the norm in North America, Europe, Japan and other developed countries. Conventional radars were replaced by Doppler radars, which in addition to position, in the United States, the construction of a network consisting of 10 cm radars, called NEXRAD or WSR-88D, was started in 1988 following NSSLs research. In Canada, Environment Canada constructed the King City station, with a 5 cm research Doppler radar, by 1985 and this led to a complete Canadian Doppler network between 1998 and 2004
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