A Real-Time Remote-Sensing-Guided Decision-Support Framework for Cloud-Seeding Operations: A Field Demonstration Using Himawari-9 and C-band Phased Array Weather Radar

Shunji Kotsuki; Kazuaki Yasunaga; Atsushi Hamada; Kazuhiro Yoshimi; Kenta Shiraishi; Akira Takeshima; Yoshiki Terashima; Kaya Kanemaru; Yusuke Hiraga; Takuya Funatomi; Hiroyuki Kubo; Kohei Suzuki; Masanao Ohashi; Tadashi Tsuyuki

arXiv · 2607.05050

A Real-Time Remote-Sensing-Guided Decision-Support Framework for Cloud-Seeding Operations: A Field Demonstration Using Himawari-9 and C-band Phased Array Weather Radar

Shunji Kotsuki·Kazuaki Yasunaga·Atsushi Hamada·Kazuhiro Yoshimi·Kenta Shiraishi·Akira Takeshima·Yoshiki Terashima·Kaya Kanemaru·Yusuke Hiraga·Takuya Funatomi·Hiroyuki Kubo·Kohei Suzuki·Masanao Ohashi·Tadashi Tsuyuki

View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

This study proposes a real-time remote-sensing-guided decision-support framework for cloud-seeding operations using high frequency geostationary satellite and ground weather radar observations. The framework integrates cloud assessment, human-in-the-loop decision support, and aircraft operation to translate high-frequency remote-sensing information into actionable guidance for seeding aircraft. We demonstrate the framework using 2.5-min Himawari-9 geostationary satellite observations and 60-s C-band phased-array weather radar (C-PAWR) observations during the preliminary dry-ice cloud-seeding field campaign conducted over Toyama Bay, Japan, in January 2026. In the 13 January case, the framework enabled the ground team to identify a developing cumulus cloud with a lifetime of approximately 20 min, communicate guidance to the aircraft, and conduct seeding immediately before the cloud began to dissipate naturally. Candidate seedable clouds were identified from Himawari-9 infrared indices, and their selection was supported by near-real-time C-PAWR observations of precipitation echoes. Because the released dry-ice amount was limited to 30 kg, this study does not attempt to attribute subsequent cloud evolution to seeding effects. Instead, the results demonstrate that rapid-scan satellite and ground radar observations can support real-time target selection and aircraft guidance for responsible, operationally feasible weather-intervention field experiments.

Explore related subjects

physics.ao-ph

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeX RIS

Shunji Kotsuki, Kazuaki Yasunaga, Atsushi Hamada, Kazuhiro Yoshimi, Kenta Shiraishi, Akira Takeshima, Yoshiki Terashima, Kaya Kanemaru, Yusuke Hiraga, Takuya Funatomi, Hiroyuki Kubo, Kohei Suzuki, Masanao Ohashi, Tadashi Tsuyuki. 2026-07-06. A Real-Time Remote-Sensing-Guided Decision-Support Framework for Cloud-Seeding Operations: A Field Demonstration Using Himawari-9 and C-band Phased Array Weather Radar. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.05050

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Conservation Constraints and Distributed Advective Memory in a Reduced Model of Atlantic Overturning Hysteresis

Interbasin exchange through the Indo-Pacific gateway supplies salt to the Atlantic and is widely invoked as a control on the stability of the Atlantic overturning circulation. We ask whether that control can act on the equilibrium structure of a conceptual thermohaline model. A closed five-box model with an exact salt invariant is constructed, comprising North Atlantic, upper-limb, Indian, Pacific, and deep reservoirs, with the return flow split between a warm route through the Indian reservoir and a cold route, together with an Indonesian Throughflow branch and an Agulhas retroflection. Adding the steady-state budgets of the gateway reservoirs shows that every internal exchange cancels, so the salt they export to the Atlantic is fixed by the net Atlantic freshwater export alone. This holds independently of the warm-route fraction, the throughflow, the retroflection, and how the export is apportioned among gateway reservoirs; across a parameter sweep the largest departure is of order ten to the minus eleven. The gateway therefore enters as a purely additive forcing and cannot renormalize the salt-advection feedback. Replacing the discrete transit lag by a gamma memory kernel leaves the equilibria unchanged but yields a closed-form threshold for oscillatory instability depending only on kernel shape. Broad memory is strongly stabilizing, and a discrete lag is the least stable member of the family. Because the instantaneous feedback vanishes at the fold, oscillatory instability always precedes the saddle-node, over an interval widening more than tenfold as memory sharpens. Gateways therefore appear to act on transient rather than equilibrium dynamics

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2026

Forecasting threshold exceedance of atmospheric variables at a specific location

Accurate short-term forecasting of extreme weather events is important for early warning and risk mitigation. We compare two approaches for predicting site-specific threshold exceedances of weather variables: direct binary probabilistic models trained on thresholded outcomes and full-distribution parametric models trained on the continuous target. Using an analytically tractable Gaussian random-location model, in which the distribution is predictably shifted by the covariates, we quantify the consequences of the information loss induced by thresholding and derive the rare-event behavior of prediction errors and forecast skill. The analysis predicts an increasing relative advantage of the full-distribution approach as event probability decreases, because binarization progressively discards information contained in the continuous response. We then compare the two approaches to forecast wind speed and accumulated rainfall at various weather station sites over southeastern France using the same hybrid neural-network architecture. Although wind speed and rainfall depart from the toy-model assumptions, its main qualitative predictions are recovered for both variables: the relative advantage of distributional modeling increases toward rarer thresholds. This agreement further suggests that a substantial fraction of the forecastable signal associated with extreme events arises from predictable shifts in the conditional distribution. For the reasonably suitable parametric families examined, the results show limited sensitivity to the selected class of distribution. Overall, the results highlight the statistical advantage of training on continuous observations rather than on thresholded binary outcomes when forecasting rare threshold exceedances.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2026

Blinded Evaluation of Oceanic Sound Source Locations via Sequential Bound Estimation

A non-linear, non-Bayesian method called sequential bound estimation (SBE) derived 100% confidence intervals of location (CIL) for 219 explosions in the ocean from measurements of their time differences of arrivals among five widely-spaced time-unsynchronized receivers on the ocean bottom. The explosion's locations were measured with the global positioning system. A blind evaluation revealed all 219 explosions were within their CIL. The probability this could happen by chance is $4 \times 10^{-116}$. The explosions were detonated in shallow water on the eastern continental shelf of the U.S. over the so-called New England Mud Patch.

physics.ao-ph↗