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National Institute for Environmental
Studies, Center for Global
Environmental Research
Mr. Fujinuma, Director of Research
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The Center for Global Environmental Research is working in cooperation with related
agencies both inside and outside of Japan on several dozens of global environment monitoring projects. These projects are centered in southeast Asia and the pacific, but concern the stratosphere, troposphere, oceans, inland waters, and biospheres that cover the overall global environment. Our job is to manage this global environmental monitoring, get the projects up and running, and ensure that a steady stream of data is produced.
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The FIELDEYE surveillance camera in Hokkaido
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The NIES has installed the Hybrid Recorder at stations in Okinawa and Hokkaido.
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The μR1800 is being used in the Tsukuba research center.
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We use the MV MobileCorders especially for projects underway in remote locations such as the monitoring of greenhouse gases along the north-south transect, stratosphere monitoring in Rikubetsu, Hokkaido, and greenhouse gas flux monitoring in the northern forests. Greenhouse gas monitoring is performed automatically at the 2 land-based measuring stations for the north-south transect of the Japanese archipelago (in Okinawa and Hokkaido), and is designed to detect trace constituents of CO2, methane, dinitrogen monoxide, and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Both stations house two types of data acquisition systems. The first type is for steady observation in which a defined set of observational data and operational monitoring information is acquired and processed on the DR240 Hybrid Recorder. This data is monitored remotely over a phone line from the research center in Tsukuba city. The second type is for observation of events, and since different kinds of events are being tested, we use the MV200 which is a general-purpose instrument that is easy to operate. The MV200 enables entry of any kind of settings from the user side, and is very convenient because it allows you to easily handle a wide variety of signal types. We also use the FIELDEYE surveillance camera, which lets us monitor the sites directly.
For stratospheric monitoring, we have borrowed a room at the Galactic Forest Observatory in Hokkaido to observe the depletion of the ozone layer. At this site, we use the MV100 to observe ultraviolet rays and other phenomena. The MV100 comes standard with Ethernet capability, so with a commercially available dialup router we can easily use a public phone line to log the data in the Tsukuba lab.
For greenhouse gas flux monitoring, we are working on constructing a maintenance program for our observation system in the northern forests of Hokkaido. That system uses all 30 channels of the MV200 for monitoring changes in CO2 levels, and for performing micrometeorology. The advantage of the MV200 is that we can monitor the operational status of the observation system, gas pressure, temperature, and other items using the color display and multiple display functions. With the MV series MobileCorders, if trouble occurs at any of our stations scattered across remote locations, we can deal with the situation in real time.
We don't have to worry about ink running out such as with pen recorders, so the continuity and reliability of the data is preserved.
Visit the National Institute for Environmental Studies Web site.
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