Kyoto, Japan -- Stifling heat and sticky air often make summertime in the city uncomfortable. Due to the heat island effect, urban areas are significantly warmer than nearby rural areas, even at night. This, combined with more frequent extreme weather events caused by climate change, often render the city an unpleasant environment in the summer.

Urbanization and climate change modify the thermal environment of urban areas, with an expectation that urban disasters from extremely hot weather and heavy rainfall will only become more severe. Mitigating potential damage involves reducing the intensity of the heat island effect and adapting to climate change.

Motivated by this problem, a team of researchers at Kyoto University set out to investigate how the reduction in urban heat release could help mitigate and control the rapid development of thunderstorms and local rainfall.

Research proposes action fronts to increase the organizational capacity of these units in municipalities; expanded coordination with other areas is one of the next steps for the sector.

Early online research in journals of the American Meteorological Society discusses the increased risk of urban heat stress for children and pets due to radiant heat from sidewalks, the effects of solar eclipse totality on wind and insects, an extension of the climate "warming stripes", thunderstorms and gamma rays, and more.

A new large-scale Ward-type tornado simulator has been built at Central South University in 2023. Stationary tornado-like vortices are generated and tested to explore the characteristics of the velocity field and surface pressure field. The results show the significant influence of swirl ratios and little influence of fan speeds on vortex structures. The simulator has the good capability of generating tornado-like vortices.

A research team led by Associate Professor Koji Iwano at Okayama University of Science has been awarded the 2025 MEXT Award for Science and Technology for groundbreaking work in improving typhoon forecasting and climate change prediction. By constructing Japan’s only large-scale indoor typhoon simulation tank, the team succeeded in precisely measuring momentum, heat, and CO₂ exchanges at the air-sea interface under extreme wind conditions. Their findings reveal how these transfers shift dramatically beyond wind speeds of 30 m/s, offering critical insights for refining global climate models and developing future typhoon mitigation strategies.

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is known to have a significant impact on climate across the Pacific, including Hawai‘i, and adjacent continents. However, new research led by University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa atmospheric scientists revealed that the Pacific Meridional Mode (PMM), another climate pattern that operates in the eastern Pacific Ocean, plays a major role in the variability of rainfall in Hawai‘i.