UH Climate Research Center celebrates U.S.-Japan collaboration

HONOLULU — At a recent breakfast hosted by UH Interim President David McClain for the Governing Committee of the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) — the climate research center at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa — the University expressed its appreciation for support from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC).

JAMSTEC has supported IPRC climate research with $3 million in the current fiscal year and with over $22.5 million since the inception of the IPRC in 1997. The center also receives federal support from NASA and NOAA in addition to individual research grants of over $2 million from national and foreign granting agencies.

The IPRC is a unique international, collaborative climate research program that was established under the framework of the "Japan-United States Common Agenda for Cooperation in Global Perspective" as part of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

The mission of the IPRC and its Japan collaborators is to create better understanding of the causes for climate variations and how climate in different regions of the Asia-Pacific may change with global warming. Since more than half of the world‘s population lives in the Asian-Pacific region, this mission is of great societal importance.

Climate changes often impact such matters as water resources, agriculture, storms, heat waves, droughts and floods, sea level, marine ecology, and fisheries. Current climate models are not yet able to simulate the climate-forming processes well enough to make consistent, accurate predictions. The IPRC scientists and their Japanese colleagues are working to improve this through their research.