This book consists of the articles from the
special issue of “‘Hot Spots’ in the Climate System” in the Journal of Oceanography,
Vol. 71 No. 5, 2015, comprising 9 chapters that cover a wide spectrum of
topics. This spinoff book is a collection of papers on the scientific outcomes
of a nationwide 5-year project funded by the Japanese Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and known internationally as the
“Hot-Spot Project.” The academic achievement of the project has gained
international recognition, making substantial contribution to unveiling the
climatic role of warm western boundary ocean currents, including the Kuroshio,
and associated oceanic fronts characterized by sharp temperature gradients and
active meso-scale oceanic eddies. Specifically, those warm currents may be
called “hot spots” in the climate system, as they intensively release heat and
moisture to the atmosphere, thereby acting to organize clouds and precipitation
systems and set conditions favorable for recurrent development of storms. This
spinoff is a unique collection of the outcome of the particular project. The
collected papers cover a wide range of aspects of ocean–atmosphere interaction
characteristic of the oceanic fronts and continental marginal seas, unveiled
through observational, theoretical, analytical, and numerical investigations.
Most of the readers of the book are assumed to be researchers and graduate
students who study climate dynamics, physical oceanography, atmospheric
science, and air–sea interaction.