Hitoshi Irie
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Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Cycles Group Center for Environmental Remote Sensing |
Topics
Better understanding of the current atmospheric environment based on our observations is expected to evaluate uncertainty in numerical models and emissions from respective countries. This will reduce uncertainty in future prediction, leading to secure society. As an example, the most recent outcome from our research is that we found an evident decrease of 6% per year in the NO2 pollution level over China after 2011. The rapid decrease occurred on a provincial or larger spatial scale and was likely due to a nationwide action such as the widespread use of denitrification units. In Japan, a turnaround indicating an increase was observed after 2013. The increase found in Japan was likely due to increased nitrogen oxides emissions from the power plant sector as the significant substitution of thermal power generation for nuclear power occurred after 2011. These finding are based on satellite remote sensing data, which were validated quantitatively using our own MAX-DOAS observations. It is interesting to study if these results can be reproduced by the latest numerical models and emission data.
Research Subjects
Irie laboratory utilizes the advanced remote sensing and information processing techniques to study when, where, and how much the atmospheric environment is changing and hence to study its mechanisms. The research topics are closely related to well-known global environment problems such as the global-scale air pollution (including PM2.5) and the climate change.
To conduct the world’s top level research, Irie laboratory has 3 advantages; 1) a unique synergistic use of global-scale-observing satellite remote sensing techniques and precisely-observing ground-based remote sensing techniques, 2) multi-atmospheric-component observations utilizing the most advanced, unique remote sensing techniques (e.g., MAX-DOAS), and 3) a unique global-wide observations with International ground-based remote sensing network (SKYNET). Our own SKYNET sites have been distributed widely in Asia, including China, Thailand, and Mongolia as well as Japan.
Selected Publications
- Irie, H., Takashima, H., Kanaya, Y., Boersma, K. F., Gast, L., Wittrock, F., Brunner, D., Zhou, Y. and Van Roozendael, M. (2011) Eight-component retrievals from ground-based MAX-DOAS observations. Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, 4, 1027–1044.
- Irie, H., Iwabuchi, H., Noguchi, K., Kasai, Y., Kita, K. and Akimoto, H. (2012) Quantifying the relationship between the measurement precision and specifications of a UV/visible sensor on a geostationary satellite. Advances in Space Research, 49, 1743–1749.
- Irie, H., Boersma, K. F., Kanaya, Y., Takashima, H., Pan, X. and Wang, Z. F. (2012) Quantitative bias estimates for tropospheric NO2 columns retrieved from SCIAMACHY, OMI, and GOME-2 using a common standard. Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, 5, 2403–2411.
- Irie, H., Nakayama, T., Shimizu, A., Yamazaki, A., Nagai, T., Uchiyama, A., Zaizen, Y., Kagamitani, S. and Matsumi, Y. (2015) Evaluation of MAX-DOAS aerosol retrievals by coincident observations using CRDS, lidar, and sky radiometer in Tsukuba, Japan. Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, 8, 2775–2788, doi:10.5194/amt-8-2775-2015.
- Irie, H., Muto, T., Itahashi, S., Kurokawa, J. and Uno, I. (2016) Turnaround of tropospheric nitrogen dioxide pollution trends in China, Japan, and South Korea. Scientific Online Letters on the Atmosphere, 12, 170–174, doi:10.2151/sola.2016-035.
Teaching
General Education Course
- Earth Environment and Remote Sensing B
Undergraduate Course
- Outline of Environmental Remore Sensing 2
- Atmospheric Remore Sensing 2
- Earth Science Seminar
- Undergraduate Research
Graduate Course
- Measurement of Earth Surface Environment
Academic Society Membership
- Meteorological Society of Japan
- Japan Society of Atmospheric Chemistry
- Japan Geoscinece Union
- American Geophysical Union