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When Japanese meteorologist Masao Mikami first came to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in Northwest China in 1990, he was deeply impressed by the natural beauty and culture.

"I admired from afar the broad and beautiful landscape in Xinjiang which I had never seen. Now that I have been, I love the friendly, shy people there," said Mikami, 49, who was recently granted a national Friendship Award for his long dedication to climate research and training in China.

Leading a China-Japan joint project for aeolian dust experiments on climate impact, Mikami, a researcher with the Meteorological Research Institute of Japan Meteorological Agency, found Xinjiang a wonderful place for his research.

The main purpose of the project is to measure and simulate the radiative effects of dust particles on the atmosphere.

"Dust and sand storms travel regardless of country borders," Mikami said. "The dust in northwestern China can even travel to Greenland in the Arctic circle."

"Through our efforts, we want to better understand the move of dust and its impact on global climate change, so that we can try to forecast sand storms and better protect our shared home - the Earth," he said.

Since 1990, Mikami has been spending several months in China every year.

Working in Cele of the Hotan area, 2,100 kilometers from Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Mikami and his Chinese colleagues from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography under the Chinese Academy of Sciences made field observations of the wind erosion process in the Taklimakan Desert, China's largest and world's second largest desert.

Using a network of lidar, sky-radiometer and dust particle samplers, Mikami's team has observed long-range dust transport and simulated dust emission and dust deposition, as well as dust concentration in the atmosphere.

In the last decade and more, Mikami's footsteps could be found around the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang and Dunhuang area in Gansu Province.

"For me, the most difficult thing about traveling to China is being away from my daughter and son and my wife," Mikami acknowledged.

Mikami has a caring family, a supportive wife, a 15-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter.

"However, I am always so busy and the work is so productive and satisfying, the time seems to fly by quickly," he said.