In 2022, the Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan (JMSJ) will publish the 100th volume of its incarnation as “Series II”. The journal's rich archive presents a fascinating history of the development of meteorological science and is a testament to all those who have contributed to the journal's success. We will keep striving to improve JMSJ in all aspects – editorial, technological, financial and otherwise – to ensure that it continues to serve as a resource for, and of, the meteorological research community.
In 2021, the JMSJ Editorial Committee was honored to present the JMSJ Award to the authors of two articles that presented novel research findings on important topics.
Seto et al. (2021): The authors describe the development of new precipitation rate retrieval algorithms for the Global Precipitation Measurement mission's Dual-frequency Precipitation radar. Major changes from the previous algorithms include the introduction of the relationship between precipitation rate and mass-weighted mean diameter (R–Dm relation), non-uniform beam filling correction, raindrop size distribution (DSD) database (single-frequency algorithms only), and the ZfKa method (dual-frequency algorithm only).
Chandra et al. (2021): Methane (CH4) is an important greenhouse gas that has a significant role in tropospheric and stratospheric chemistry. CH4 growth rate (i.e., year-to-year change) in the atmosphere has varied in three distinct phases in the past three decades (1988–2016); namely, the periods of slowed (1988–1998), quasi-stationary (1999–2006), and renewed (2007–2016) growth phases. These phases are explained by anomalies in global and regional emissions that the authors estimated with an atmospheric chemistry-transport model-based inverse modelling framework and observations from 19 sites worldwide. The authors also categorize these anomalies the help of emission inventories.
The two most accessed papers in 2021 were Kobayashi et al. (2015), which describes the general specifications and basic characteristics of the JRA-55 Reanalysis, and Bessho et al. (2016), which provides a comprehensive introduction to the new Himawari-8/9 geostationary meteorological satellites. Four articles published in 2021 appeared in the top 10 most accessed papers in 2021: Chandra et al. (2021), Judt et al. (2021), Kikuchi (2021), and Wada (2021). For the full list, see https://jmsj.metsoc.jp/most_accessed/2021.html.
Five invited review articles were published in 2021: Hitchman et al. (2021), with an observational history of the direct influence of the stratospheric quasi-biennial oscillation on the tropical and subtropical upper troposphere and lower stratosphere; Nakamura (2021), on the progress from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite to the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission; Haynes et al. (2021), on the influence of the stratosphere on the tropical troposphere; Mapes (2021), on form-function relationships for mesoscale structure in convection; and Kikuchi (2021), on the boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation. We thank these authors for their contributions.
Five JMSJ special editions were organized and published in 2021:
Submissions for “Special Edition on Research on Extreme Weather Events that occurred around East Asia in 2017–2021” are open, and we welcome further contributions to this special edition. JMSJ jointly organized this special edition with SOLA, the Meteorological Society of Japan's international letters journal.
In 2020, JMSJ created a channel on J-STAGE Data (https://jstagedata.jst.go.jp/jmsj) to enable authors to deposit, share and link to the data within their articles. In 2021, JMSJ authors added seven datasets to J-STAGE Data, including data from Iwakiri and Watanabe (2021), which received 728 views and 333 downloads (accessed on January 26, 2022). Authors of JMSJ papers are strongly encouraged to use J-STAGE Data for archiving datasets related to their papers. Authors who plan to use J-STAGE Data should refer to the JMSJ website (https://jmsj.metsoc.jp/instructions.html) and contact the JMSJ Editorial Office (jmsj@metsoc.jp) for instructions.
On behalf of JMSJ, I would like to extend my thanks to the meteorological research community for its support of the journal in 2021 and for the forthcoming contributions in 2022. The journal's success relies on the considerable efforts of authors, reviewers, readers, and editors. We look forward to working with you to continue JMSJ's development and success in 2022.
