• Atmosphere
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.87-101
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• 2022

In this paper, the performance improvement for the new KMA's Climate Prediction System (GloSea6), which has been built and tested in 2021, is presented by assessing the bias distribution of basic variables from 24 years of GloSea6 hindcasts. Along with the upgrade from GloSea5 to GloSea6, the performance of GloSea6 can be regarded as notable in many respects: improvements in (i) negative bias of geopotential height over the tropical and mid-latitude troposphere and over polar stratosphere in boreal summer; (ii) cold bias of tropospheric temperature; (iii) underestimation of mid-latitude jets; (iv) dry bias in the lower troposphere; (v) cold tongue bias in the equatorial SST and the warm bias of Southern Ocean, suggesting the potential of improvements to the major climate variability in GloSea6. The warm surface temperature in the northern hemisphere continent in summer is eliminated by using CDF-matched soil-moisture initials. However, the cold bias in high latitude snow-covered area in winter still needs to be improved in the future. The intensification of the westerly winds of the summer Asian monsoon and the weakening of the northwest Pacific high, which are considered to be major errors in the GloSea system, had not been significantly improved. However, both the use of increased number of ensembles and the initial conditions at the closest initial dates reveals possibility to improve these biases. It is also noted that the effect of ensemble expansion mainly contributes to the improvement of annual variability over high latitudes and polar regions.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.343-363
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• 2023

Sulawesi island, as a global producer of nickel resources, is leading the rapid growth of nickel industry of Indonesia. Nickel laterite deposits in Sulawesi was formed by lateritization of the world-scale East Sulawesi Ophiolite (ESO) under the active tectonic setting and tropical rainforest climate. In this paper, exploration cases for nickel laterite deposits in five regions of Sulawesi are reported. Regional characteristics on nickel laterite deposits in Sulawesi are understood based on various exploration activities such as outcrop, trench and pit survey, petrological observation, geochemical analysis, and interpretation of drilling data, etc.. In the northeastern part of 'Southeast-Arm', which is a strategic location for nickel industry of Indonesia, ESO is extensively exposed to the surface. In the Morombo and Morowali regions, typical high-grade saprolite-type orebodies with a thickness of 10 to 20 m occur. The cases showed that topographic relief tends to regulate Ni-grade distribution and orebody thickness, and that high grade intervals tend to occur in places where joints and garnierite veins are dense. In the Tinanggea and South Palangga regions in the southern part of the Southeast-Arm, overburden composed of Neogene to Quaternary deposits is a major factor affecting the preservation and profitability of nickel laterite deposits. Despite the overburden, high-grade saprolite-type orebodies composed of Ni-bearing serpentine with garnierite veins occur in a thickness of around 10 m to secure economic feasibility. In contrast, in the Ampana region in the northern part of 'East-Arm', low-grade nickel laterite deposits with immature laterite profile was identified, which is thought to be the result of active denudation due to tectonic uplift. Exploration cases in this paper will help to understand characteristics and controlling factors on nickel laterite deposits in Sulawesi, Indonesia.