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Aerosol optical properties have been provided from the Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS). It is the world's first geostationary earth orbit (GEO) satellite instrument designed for atmospheric environmental monitoring. This study describes improvements to the GEMS aerosol retrieval algorithm (AERAOD). These include spectral binning, surface reflectance estimation, cloud masking, and post-processing. Furthermore, the study presents validation results. These enhancements are aimed at providing more accurate and reliable aerosol monitoring results for Asia. The adoption of spectral binning in the lookup table (LUT) approach reduces random errors and enhances the stability of the satellite measurements. In addition, we introduce a new high-resolution database for surface reflectance estimation based on the minimum reflectance method adapted to the GEMS pixel resolution. Monthly background aerosol optical depth (BAOD) values are used to consistently estimate the hourly GEMS surface reflectance. Advanced cloud-removal techniques are implemented to significantly improve the effectiveness of cloud detection and enhance the quality of aerosol retrieval. An innovative post-processing correction method based on machine learning is introduced to address artificial diurnal biases in aerosol optical depth (AOD) observations. This study investigates specific aerosol events. It highlights capability of GEMS to monitor and provide insights into hourly aerosol optical properties during various atmospheric events. The performance of the GEMS AERAOD products is validated against the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) data for the period from November 2021 to October 2022. The GEMS AOD demonstrates a strong correlation with the AERONET AOD (R = 0.792). However, it exhibits bias patterns including underestimation of high AOD values and overestimation in low AOD conditions. Different aerosol types (highly absorbing fine, dust, and non-absorbing) exhibit distinct validation results. The GEMS single scattering albedo (SSA) retrievals agree well with the AERONET data within reasonable error ranges, with variations observed among the aerosol types. For GEMS AOD exceeding 0.4 (1.0), 42.76% (56.61%) and 67.25% (85.70%) of GEMS SSA data points fall within the ±0.03 and ±0.05 error bounds, respectively. Model-enforced post-processing correction improved the GEMS AOD and SSA performances, thereby reducing the diurnal variation in biases. The validation of the GEMS aerosol layer height (ALH) retrievals against the CALIOP data demonstrates a good agreement, with a mean bias of -0.225 km, and 55.29% (71.70%) of data within ±1 km (1.5 km). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To engage in a comparison of school psychology research and practice in eastern and western countries, the current study sought to identify key themes that have influenced the field of school psychology in East Asian countries. Forty-six leading school psychology professionals in Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan provided their perspectives to a six-question survey based on a survey created by McIntosh, Martinez, Ty, and McClain (2013) regarding pivotal ideas and findings related to research and practice in the past 25 years, present, and future that they find particularly exciting. Qualitative thematic analysis, using NVivo software, yielded nine major and 41 minor categories. Across the three time periods (past, present, future), six of the nine major categories (Data-Informed Practices and Their Implementation, Knowledge and Practice of Individual Differences, Theory Development, Technology Development, Development of School Psychology, and Consultation and Collaboration) and seven of the 41 minor categories were present. A comparison between the current study and the McIntosh and colleagues (2013) study suggests that there were many consistencies in major and minor categories. Comparisons between these two studies, along with limitations, future areas for research, and implications for practice, are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An avian influenza A(H6N5) virus with all 8 segments of North American origin was isolated from wild bird feces in South Korea. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that this virus may have been introduced into Asia by wild birds, highlighting the role of wild birds in the dispersal of these viruses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving the simulation of regional climate change is one of the high-priority areas of climate study because regional information is needed for climate change impact assessments. Such information is especially important for the region covered by the East Asian monsoon where there is high variability in both space and time. To this end, the Regional Climate Model Intercomparison Project (RMIP) for Asia has been established to evaluate and improve regional climate model (RCM) simulations of the monsoon climate. RMIP operates under joint support of the Asia–Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), the Global Change System for Analysis, Research and Training (START), the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and several projects of participating nations. The project currently involves 10 research groups from Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States, as well as scientists from India, Italy, Mongolia, North Korea, and Russia. RMIP has three simulation phases: March 1997–August 1998, which covers a full annual cycle and extremes in monsoon behavior; January 1989–December 1998, which examines simulated climatology; and a regional climate change scenario, involving nesting with a global model. This paper is a brief report of RMIP goals, implementation design, and some initial results from the first phase studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four year long climate simulations using the Seoul National University, regional climate model have been performed to assess the role of the MODIS Leaf Area Index (LAI) and interactive LAI in influencing Asian climate. The control experiment employs the fixed monthly LAI according to the original land surface model. An other additional simulation replaces the LAI by 4-year mean MODIS climatology. The last two integrations both allow the LAI to interact with the atmosphere, but adopt two different simple parameterization schemes. Although the control experiment generally reproduces spatial distribution and the magnitude of Asian surface climate, it contains large biases in some specific areas, which are partly improved by the implementation of MODIS LAI and vegetation interaction schemes. In winter months (January-to-March), greener land surface introduced in the last three simulations reduces cold biases over North east China and adjacent areas, southern China, Korea, and Japan, and warm biases over South Asia, and precipitation discrepancies over South Asia, southern China and West Japan. In contrast, LAI changes only play a limited role in summer. There are significant differences between regions with respect to mechanisms explaining winter-month improvement in surface climate simulations. Over North east China and adjacent areas, in creased LAI increases net solar radiation by about 12 W m-2 mainly through the effects on surface albedo, thereby warming the surface by about 1.8°C. A decrease in clouds makes a major contribution to surface warming and precipitation reduction over southern China. In creased evapotranspiration dominates changes in surface energy balance, and cause less net radiation to be partitioned into sensible heat over South Asia. As a result, the model simulates about 1.5°C colder surface air temperature and about 0.1 mm day-1 more precipitation over this region. Finally, the implications and limitations of this study are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]