The primary target area of this project is the Far East and western North Pacific, where the most distinct "hot-spot" in the extratropical climate system is situated. Under the "meridional contiguousness" between the tropical heat and the polar cold caused by the Kuroshio and Oyashio Currents and the East-Asian Monsoon, there are various interactive phenomena in the atmosphere and ocean (including sea ice) that are involved in the release of a huge amount of heat and moisture from the ocean into the atmosphere. We make every effort to understand the underlying mechanisms of these phenomena. Scientists from various fields of climate study join this project to perform collaborative studies between in situ observations in the Kuroshio Extension (KE) region and data analysis of both model output from the Earth Simulator (ES) and high-resolution satellite observations. Through our collaborative efforts, we identify an active role of the midlatitude ocean in the formation of atmospheric circulation and surface environment and in their variability, in attempting to establish a new paradigm of the climatological research as we have been pursuing.