Sea Ice:
- Alastair, in case I didn't confirm it earlier, you're on for the 50 quatloos for September NSIDC sea ice extent over/under 4.15 million km^2. I'll stand with that even with the recent drop in ice extent.
- All are welcome to enter in the poll at the bottom. I see few are taking the higher side of estimates. I hope that's not because you're intimidated by my guesses! When I'm confident about what I'm doing, I'll call them predictions.
- The June Arctic Sea Ice Outlook is out (more in a post to come). The guesses I'm involved with are 4.4, 4.8, 4.9, with the 4.8 likely to come down when we make a run with more recent initial conditions. (Again, this first one was from December)
- GCOM-W1 did indeed enter orbit safely and instruments are powering up and being checked out. The bad news is that AMSR2 is looking at 12-18 months from launch before its data distribution (to me at work) becomes operational.
- The recent rapid drop-off (and then plateauing) is more or less to be expected. I think. If I'm wrong, Alastair stands to win his 50 quatloos.
Japan:
- My meeting went well. My thanks to the JMA and JAXA (Japanese Meteorological Agency and Japanese Space Agency). And especially Misako Kachi who took lead in coordinating it.
- Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Kamakura, and Mt. Fuji all are excellent places to visit as a tourist. Selected photos to come.
- Someone with approximately zero Japanese language skill, but ok English, can indeed tourist around Japan ok. (Exhibits 1 and 2 being my wife and me.)
- If you're not Japanese, be sure to stay at a Ryokan if you have a chance. We stayed at Fujitomori.
- 13 time zones followed by several 12 hour working days are difficult.
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