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Moisture Commons

Let moisture take us on its journey—
crossing geopolitical borders, dissolving boundaries
between you and nature,
between city and city,
between cities and oceans miles away.

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Every summer in Kyushu,
a trace of moisture carried by winds
from distant oceans and lands
falls as days of rain.

It lands on your umbrella,
is absorbed by the soils of Fukuoka,
and lingers as mist over the mountains—
the humidity in the summer air.

Long before you felt it,
this moisture had already journeyed
far across the ocean,
a single thread in the vast tapestry
of atmospheric rivers and vapor fluxes
connecting distant worlds
to your immediate surroundings.

Are you ready to follow the far-reaching paths of water that find you?

Moisture Journeys

🌏 Tracing how atmospheric moisture travels to Kyushu during the Meiyu–Baiu season.

🌧️ Meiyu-Baiu rainfall
Refers to the seasonal monsoon rains that occur from June to July across East Asia, bringing prolonged precipitation vital for water resources and agriculture — yet causing droughts when weak and floods when strong.

⛩️ Kyushu
The southwesternmost of Japan’s main islands, which receives much of its annual rainfall during this period. In July 2020, record-breaking rains struck the region, triggering severe floods and landslides.

Year-to-year rain changes

📊 Yearly variations in moisture sources and the isotopic composition of Meiyu–Baiu rainfall in Kyushu (2004–2023) ↗ 

💧 Much of the rain comes from:

  • the Asian monsoon (AM), bringing moisture from the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, and the East Asian continent

  • the North Pacific Subtropical High (NPSH), carrying moisture from the Pacific Ocean and the Philippine Sea

☔ When warm Asian monsoon moisture increases, extreme rainfall becomes more likely.

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Climate change is an urgent global challenge,
yet public understanding of climate systems
remains limited.
Data alone cannot convey
the interconnectedness of global processes
or their relevance to everyday life.

Developed in collaboration with the Yoshimura Lab, IIS, UTokyo, Moisture Commons visualizes recent research on moisture sources and transport to deepen awareness of our shared atmospheric commons.

As an ongoing initiative, the project continues to expand toward a global scope, exploring new forms of visualization and tangibilization to make climate communication more engaging and comprehensible. By revealing the global circulation of water and its shared, public nature, the project fosters collective awareness and encourages international cooperation on climate action.


👥 Ivy Wentan Gao, Mariia Garaeva, Hyunjung Kim, Xiaoyang Li, Kei Yoshimura
▶️ Moisture Journeys
▶️ Annual Data Visualizations

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