Current Climate

Climatology

This page presents Japan's climate context for the current climatology, 1991-2020, derived from observed, historical data. Information should be used to build a strong understanding of current climate conditions in order to appreciate future climate scenarios and projected change. You can visualize data for the current climatology through spatial variation, the seasonal cycle, or as a time series. Analysis is available for both annual and seasonal data. Data presentation defaults to national-scale aggregation, however sub-national data aggregations can be accessed by clicking within a country, on a sub-national unit.  Other historical climatologies can be selected from the Time Period dropdown list. 

Observed, historical data is produced by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of University of East Anglia. Data is presented at a 0.5º x 0.5º (50km x 50km) resolution.

Japan stretches over a great distance from north to south, with its most southern point of the whole land including remote islands located at 20 degrees north latitude, and the most northern point at 46 degrees north latitude. With such a structure, various climate zones exist in the islands of Japan such as subarctic, extratropical and subtropical zone.