Updates from Years of the Maritime Continent - A CLIVAR endorsed project

The Years of the Maritime Continent (YMC) field campaign has started since July 2017. Several Intensive Observation Periods (IOPs) have been conducted. They include the study of the relationship between diurnal cycle (DC) of rain and the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) in the west coast of Sumatra Island by Indonesia, Japan and US researchers in November 2017 - January 2018, and the boreal winter monsoon study in the South China Sea by a group from Taiwan of China in December 2017. Currently, the boreal summer monsoon study has been conducted by several research groups from Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan of China, US, and Vietnam during July - October 2018. Preliminary reports as well as forecast products of these IOPs can be found at or linked from the YMC web site (http://www.jamstec.go.jp/ymc/).

As for the future plan, US and UK researchers will start a study on the Kelvin wave propagation along the equator in September 2018. US researchers will start a year-long observation in Indonesia for the DC-MJO study starting November 2018. A Banda Sea cruise through a US-Indonesia collaboration is expected to take place in early 2019. Several other campaigns for the DC-MJO study are also scheduled in November 2019 - February 2020 by Australia, UK, and Indonesia. In total, 13 IOPs are expected to be carried out by early 2020.

While the IOPs have been conducted, further coordination as well as preliminary review will be made at the YMC 4th workshop in Quezon, Philippines, 26 - 28 February 2019. In addition, since the capacity building and outreach in the MC is one of key YMC activities, international community has actively provided such opportunities. For example, US researchers visited Indonesia to offer the special workshop to get knowledge about observations, analyses, and modeling. Japanese researchers also provided lectures in Indonesia and Philippines. In addition, they will invite students and researchers from both countries to Japan for educational training.

At this moment, articles published are limited (see below) due to short period since the completion of the first IOP. Publication information is regularly updated on the YMC web site.

Papers from the YMC campaign as of Aug. 2018 are:

Moteki, Q., M. Katsumata, K. Yoneyama, K. Ando, and T. Hasegawa, 2018: Drastic thickening of the barrier layer off the western coast of Sumatra due to the Madden Julian Oscillation passage during the Pre-Years of the Maritime Continent campaign. Prog. Earth Planet. Sci., 5, 35, doi:10.1186/s40645-018-0190-9.

Wu, P., S. Mori, and F. Syamsudin, 2018: Land-sea surface air temperature contrast on the western coast of Sumatra Island during an active phase of the Madden-Julian oscillation. Prog. Earth Planet. Sci., 5, 4, doi:10.1186/s40645-017-0160-7.

Yokoi, S., S. Mori, M. Katsumata, B. Geng, K. Yasunaga, F. Syamsudin, Nurhayati, and K. Yoneyama, 2017: Diurnal cycle of precipitation observed in the western coastal area of Sumatra Island: Offshore preconditioning by gravity waves. Mon. Wea. Rev., 145, 3745-3761.

News prepared by Kunio Yoneyama (JAMSTEC), Chidong Zhang (NOAA/PMEL)