President of Japan Marine Science and Technology Center
Thank you chairman.
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
I would like to express my sincere appreciation for your participation in this International Workshop on Pacific Ocean Buoy Network in Mutsu in spite of a long travel from your home. On behalf of all the staff at Japan Marine Science and Technology Center, I would like to extend my hearty welcome to each one of you.
Those past and on-going research activities conducted for many years as international collaboration programs, such as TOGA and WOCE have proven their worth, and the efforts have now evolved into the new CLIVAR program. Indeed, the fact that an experimental forecasting is now available of EL Nino, an event held as largely affecting people's life and economy worldwide, plainly shows how far we have come.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to express my deep appreciation for the immense efforts put forth by a great many scientists, and my profound respect for the truly laudable progress they have achieved. I also note with pride that Japanese scientists have had active participation since the beginning of these international research programs.
Japan Marine Science and Technology Center is a general oceanographic institute established in 1971. It carries out a wide range of composite research and development projects in ocean science and technology under the supervision of the Science and Technology Agency of Japan. Based on our thinking that science progresses with technological development, and conversely, technology develops with scientific needs, we emphasized not only physical oceanography, deep sea geography, deep sea biology, and coastal utilization and development, but also the development of technologies and hardware to support these scientific pursuits.
It is in this same context that we are now constructing a new large 8,600-ton research vessel, named "Mirai"(or "the future" in English) to be completed in September 1997. Along with this new research vessel construction, we are developing a new ocean observing buoy system to be deployed in arrays in tropical and mid and high-latitude seas. JAMSTEC will continue its active participation in international research programs such as CLIVAR and GOOS. We believe these
