Modeling households’ decisions on reconstruction of houses damaged by earthquakes––Japanese case study

In this study, households’ decisions on reconstruction of damaged houses were modeled, using questionnaire data in Japan. Characteristics of households’ decisions were investigated using parameter estimation results. The effects of subsidizing policy were evaluated as follows. First, subsidy for rebuilding may be effective for the households whose houses were heavily damaged. Second, there is a possibility that subsidy accelerated rebuilding of houses by the households having children. Third, subsidy for rebuilding may not be effective for elderly people’s households and households in depopulated areas.     

Satellite detection of red tide in Ariake Sound, 1998–2001

High resolution SeaWiFS data was used to detect red tide events that occurred in the Ariake Sound, Japan, a small embayment known as one of the most productive areas in Japan. SeaWiFS chlorophyll data clearly showed that a large red tide event, which damaged seaweed (Nori) cultures, started early in December 2000 in Isahaya Bay, expanded to the whole sound and persisted to the end of February 2001. The monthly average of SeaWiFS data from May 1998 to December 2001 indicated that the chlorophyll peaks appeared twice a year, in early summer and in fall, after the peaks of rain and river discharge. The SeaWiFS data showed that the red tide event during 2000–2001 winter was part of the fall bloom; however, it started later and continued significantly longer than other years. Satellite ocean color data is useful to detect the red tide; however the algorithms require improvement to accurately estimate chlorophyll in highly turbid water and in red tide areas.     

An energy conversion method in the ocean using the density difference of water

A new method which produces energy from the ocean by utilizing the density difference of water, by means of a “chimney effect”, is proposed. Density difference of water in the ocean occurs in two ways, namely differences of consistency and water temperature. For instance, fresh river and melting floes and icebergs are pointed out as some origins of the former, while thermal effects of volcanoes and hot springs may account for the latter. Furthermore, sunlight power transmitted into the sea through glass fibre power lines can be an artificial source in the latter case.This paper concentrates on regions near estuaries where low density river water can be piped into the high density ocean. An analysis estimates that the proposed method extracts energy of several thousands or more kW in the above case.     

Full-range equation for wave boundary layer thickness

Full-range equation covering all the flow regimes in a wave boundary layer is proposed for the boundary layer thickness. The results are compared with the available experimental data and good agreement has been found. In case of wave boundary layers, there are three definitions of boundary layer thickness in use. Therefore, the full-range equation is derived for three of the definitions. The findings of this study may be useful in calculating suspended sediment transport in coastal environments and studying wave–current combined motion.     

Air-Sea Gas Transfer Velocity in Stormy Winter Estimated from Radon Deficiency

Thirteen vertical profiles of ²²⁶Ra and ²²²Rn in the near-surface water were obtained in the western North Pacific in winter, and the gas transfer velocities across the air-sea interface were estimated. The transfer velocities found by applying a steady state model varied widely from 2.1 to 30.2 m day⁻¹ with a mean of 9.4 m day⁻¹. The mean value is almost 5 times higher than that in summer in other oceans, and the maximum value is a record high for world oceans. This is partly due to the inadequacy of the steady state model, which overestimates when stronger winds blow in more recent days than the ²²²Rn half-life of about 4 days. In fact, a strong low pressure zone passed through the station about 2 days earlier, which was one of the low pressure zones that with a period of develop once a week or so in the northwestern North Pacific in winter. Instead of steady-state removal, if half of the radon removal occurred sporadically every 7 days, and the last removal took place two days before the observation, the transfer velocity would be 26 m day⁻¹. Our mean transfer velocity, which is less than 20% different from the steady state value including both overestimated and underestimated values, 9.4 ± 4.8 m day⁻¹, seems to represent the mean state of this region in winter. This suggests that the gas exchange fluxes under extremely rough conditions in the open ocean are larger than those estimated by using a transfer velocity equation with a linear or quadratic relationship with wind speed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Some features of jump in water temperature in aSargassum forest

To clarify the influence of aSargassum forest on water temperature distributions observations were made inside and outside aSargassum forest off the Nagata Shore on the northern Saiki Bay open to the Bungo Channel on the Pacific side of Kyushu, Japan. About sixty thermistor probes were deployed at 0.5 m depth intervals from the bottom to the sea surface at seven stations spaced at 50–80 m distances along two transects: one inside the forest and the other outside. Water temperature was measured at five minutes intervals from 6 to 9 August 1987 with thermistor probes. The spatial standing crop distribution of theSargassum forest along the transects was investigated. A water temperature jump of about 2°C, recorded during the observation, is probably caused by an intrusion of a warm water mass from the central Bungo Channel to Saiki Bay. The water temperature jump under theSargassum forest on the rough bottom with stones occurred one to two hours behind that outside the forest (sandy bed) although the distance between the transects inside and outside the forest was only 50–80 m. It is suggested that theSargassum forest and the rough bottom would prevent intruding warm water from smoothly replacing cold water due to resistance of theSargassum species and the bottom to a current.     

Annual and interannual variations of large-scale circulation over the tropics as revealed from OLR data

In this study, the outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) data of eight years have been used to investigate the annual and interannual variations of large-scale circulation over the tropics. The results of EOF analysis indicate that the first three eigenvectors reflect the essential features in OLR annual variation. However, they contribute little to the interannual change. In comparison, the fourth to the sixth components have very large year-to-year variations. The pronounced anomalies are located over the tropics with east-west dipole pattern. It implies that ENSO events are related closely to the variation of the Walker circulation.     

Irrotational,progressive surface gravity waves near the limiting height

Numerical solutions of irrotational, progressive surface gravity waves in water of a constant depth are obtained by means of an iterative method. Our results suggest that waves with the surface slope angle greater than/6 may exist. The calculated phase velocity of deep water waves near the wave steepness 0.14 is significantly smaller than the value given by the Stokes' fourth approximation.In order to check our method, we apply it to the problem proposed byDavies (1951), which is hypothetical but similar to the present problem, and for which the exact solution is known. In this case our results show good agreement with the exact solution.