Kushiro area is known as one of the coldest area at Hokkaido. The anual avarage temperature here is 5.5℃, and this region is classified as subarctic climate. Secound figure from the top shows comparison of monthly temperature of Tokyo, Sapporo, and Kushiro. This clearly shows that Kushiro has the lowest temperature at any time of year compared to these three.
As a notable characteristics, in addition, Kushiro region is well known as the place to have sea fog such an often times. Annualy, the day to be covered by sea fog are counted more than 100 days. This cold and humid climate is one of the major factor to characterize biological world at Kushiro wetland.
There were several large scale wetlands at Hokkaido about 100 years ago, but many of those has been disappeared due to the land development and improvement for the residencial and agricultural purposes. Fortunately, however, Kushiro wetland relatively remained natural in terms of the quality and the area. This is due to the difficult weather for cultivation, that has taken an important role to protect Kushiro wetland from peoples hand.
Mechanism of Sea Fog Production
Why is Kushiro region covered by sea fog so ofte times? The reason are complicated correlation of the location of Kushiro, warm and cold ocean current, and air mass.
Fundamental Info.
Nature of Wetland
Topic 1
