MEXT Scholarship 2016 (Research Category) Research Proposal

Do rice fields have an impact on weather patterns in global warming conditions?

Rice is the most widely consumed staple food for over half of the worlds human
population, predominantly countries in North America and Asia1. It is the most important grain
with regard to human nutrition with the third-highest worldwide production1. The need for
meeting the growing global demand for rice will require higher rice production with increased
production per unit planting area. How these rice fields will interact with climate change from
global warming for the surrounding areas is not entirely known. It is important that we
understand how rice paddies affect our atmosphere under current and future conditions.
Agriculture is a major anthropogenic source of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. Rice
paddies are known to emit nitrous oxide (NO) and methane (CH4), a GHG with 20 times the
potency of CO2 as a greenhouse gas2. Atmospheric methane gas (CH4) in rice paddies is
produced by microscopic organisms that respire CO2, like humans respire oxygen3. Rice paddies
are the largest anthropogenic source of methane production4. In global warming conditions,
increases in atmospheric carbon-dioxide (CO2) and rising temperatures, the effect on GHG
emissions from rice paddies has been shown. Increased levels of CO2 stimulated CH4 emissions
from rice by 42.2%5. Climate models estimate as well that by the end of the twenty-first century,
land temperatures in rice-growing regions will be almost 4oC warmer than today5. This analysis
suggests that rising CO2 and atmospheric warming will approximately double the GHG intensity
of rice production. This stresses the need to study the effect rice paddies will have on the
atmosphere circulation above.
CH4 is highly impacted by anaerobic environment such as an irrigation system6. Since
rice is grown with irrigated water, CH4 is possibly increased thereby causing increased GHG
emissions. One way to mitigate this problem is by devising a different strategy in growing rice
using intermittent irrigation scheme. There is some research to be done along this area. This
study will predict reduction in GHG with the necessary irrigation scheme. This also saves
farmers when carbon exchange credit is applied.

Natural sources of methane (Image: U.S. Dept. of Energy Technology Laboratory,

National Methane Hydrate Program)
This research will be done mainly by comparison and build upon the work already done
by scientists on the topic. Comparing the meteorological data from Japan between present and a
few decades back will highlight changes in weather patterns over the growing rice field areas.
The rest of the research will be connecting these changes to known effects of GHG. In one study,
the increase of CH4 greater than 40%, as previously mentioned, over East Asia was found to
affect wind patterns. The conclusion showed a strengthening in the westerly winds7. As a result,
special attention will be given to the differences these wind patterns might make in East Asian
weather. Just as CH4 also has a great effect on atmospheric ozone (O3), attention will be given to
find changes an increase in ozone might have.
Certain data and programs will be used to aid with the comparison. Meteorological data
will be taken from the Japan Meteorological Agencys website. Such information includes
quantitative data (temperature, wind speed, etc) and satellite images from the GOES radar. The
usability of ensemble simulation methods for GHG effects on a local area must be clarified to
produce observations and numerical model studies. Models will be made in programs such as
ArcGIS and IDL. More research will be done on the effects of GHG, such as methane, on the
atmospheric circulation over Japan.
In all rice growing regions, rice farming has political and economic implications. Japan
and the United States both also have great interest in rice farming. Rice is very important to the
economy of the US and in Japan it is a very important staple food8. The state of Arkansas
produces the nearly half of the rice in US at almost 112 million cwt of rice in 20149. The research
by Van Groenigen and Van Kessel shows that rice fields play a role in global warming. With

GHGs on the increase, it is in the best interest of both countries to determine if rice fields play a
part in the atmospheric changes that will occur in the future.

Research Goals
The goals of this research proposal are as follows:
1. To determine the current atmospheric conditions over a typical rice paddy.
2. To examine past atmospheric conditions and patterns over rice fields areas.
3. Compare and contrast the past patterns with the current.
4. To find the effects global warming will have on the atmospheric conditions over rice
paddies
5. To model future patterns with the GHG trends increasing upwards.
6. Assess the effect of the future patterns for Japan.

Research Timetable
Month
Month 1
Month 2
Month 3

Task
Gather data on the
atmospheric conditions above
a rice field environment in
Japan

Month 4
Month 5
Month 6

Analyze data over a period of

recent years to see if weather
patterns emerge

Month 7
Month 8
Month 9

Analyze data over a period of

a few decades back to see if
weather patterns emerge

Month 10
Month 11
Month 12

Compare and contrast the

resulting data for similarities
and differences; creating a
hypothesis for future patterns
using statistical analysis

Month 13
Month 14

Research the effects of GHG

Ongoing Task
Study how to represent future
atmospheric conditions using
computer programming

Month 15
Month 16
Month 17

on weather patterns; relating

the effects to the research
done

Month 18
Month 19
Month 20
Month 21
Month 22
Month 23
Month 24

Simulate the resulting model

with an added variable with
increases in GHG using
computer programming
Assess the effects the model
shows for the outlook on
Japan

Citations
1. "FAOSTAT." FAOSTAT. FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE
UNITED NATIONS, n.d. Web. 25 May 2016.
<http://faostat.fao.org/site/339/default.aspx>.Smith, Bruce D. (1998) The Emergence of
Agriculture. Scientific American Library, A Division of HPHLP, New York, ISBN 0-71676030-4.
2. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. "Methane's Impacts On Climate Change May Be
Twice Previous Estimates." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 19 July 2005.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/07/050718214744.htm>.
3. Trinity College Dublin. "Rice agriculture accelerates global warming: More greenhouse
gas per grain of rice." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 October 2012.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121021154455.htm>.
4. Schmidt, Gavin. "National Aeronautics and Space Administration." NASA GISS: Research
Features: Methane: A Scientific Journey from Obscurity to Climate Super-Stardom. N.p.,
Sept. 2004. Web. 25 May 2016.
<http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/features/200409_methane/>.
5. van Groenigen, K. J., C. van Kessel, and B. A. Hungate (2013), Increased greenhouse-gas
intensity of rice production under future atmospheric conditions, Nat. Clim. Change, 3(3),
288291.

6. Moterle, Diovane Freire et al . Methane efflux in rice paddy field under different irrigation
managements. Rev. Bras. Cinc. Solo, Viosa , v. 37, n. 2, p. 431-437, Apr. 2013 .
Available from <http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S010006832013000200014&lng=en&nrm=iso>. access on 14 June 2016.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-06832013000200014.
7. Shang, Lin, Yi Liu, Wenshou Tian, and Yuli Zhang. "Effect of Methane Emission Increases
in East Asia on Atmospheric Circulation and Ozone." Adv. Atmos. Sci. Advances in
Atmospheric Sciences 32.12 (2015): 1617-627. Web.
8. Wojtan, Linda W. "Rice: It's More Than Food In Japan." FSI. N.p., Nov. 1993. Web. 25
May 2016. <http://spice.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/rice_its_more_than_food_in_japan>.
9. "Top Rice Producing U.S. States in 2014 and 2015 (in 1,000 Cwt)*." Statista. N.p., 2015.
Web. 25 May 2016. <http://www.statista.com/statistics/190823/top-us-states-for-riceproduction/>.