An experimental ENSO prediction system is presented, based on an ocean general circulation model (GCM) coupled to a statistical atmosphere and the adjoint method of 4D variational data assimilation. The adjoint method is used to initialize the coupled model, and predictions are performed for the period 1980–99. The coupled model is also initialized using two simpler assimilation techniques: for...

This article discusses the results of a study which investigated Cantonese ESL learners’ perception of English vowels and their perceived similarity between similar L1 and L2 vowels in an attempt to test the prediction of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM). Forty university English majors participated in three L2 perception tasks, which aimed at discerning their perception of English vowel...

Data assimilation into sea ice models designed for climate studies has started about 15 years ago. In most of the studies conducted so far, it is assumed that the improvement brought by the assimilation is straightforward. However, some studies suggest this might not be true. In order to elucidate this question and to find an appropriate way to further assimilate sea ice concentration and veloc...

Japanese shows an asymmetry in the treatment of word-final [n] in loanwords from English and French: while it is adapted as a moraic nasal consonant in loanwords from English, it is adapted with a following epenthetic vowel in loanwords from French. We provide experimental evidence that this asymmetry is due to phonetic differences in the realisation of word-final [n] in English and French, and...

The present research tests Japanese listeners’ perception of Italian liquids under the framework of the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM), a model of non-native speech perception. The study examines the discrimination and the identification of Italian liquids (/l/, /r/, /ll/, /rr/ and /ʎ/), while comparing the results with those of replicated perception experiments of Spanish liquids (/l/, /ɾ...

The present study verified whether adult listeners retain the ability to improve non-native speech perception and if it can be significantly enhanced in the formal context, a very impoverished context with respect to the natural one. We tested (i) whether perceptual learning is possible for adults in a classroom context during focused phonetic lessons, and (ii) whether it follows the pattern pr...