• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.26 no.5
• /
• pp.475-489
• /
• 2010

In order to verify the enhancement of ozone and carbon monoxide (CO) during springtime in East Asia, we investigated weather conditions and data from remote sensors, air quality models, and air quality monitors. These include the geopotential height archived from the final (FNL) meteorological field, the potential vorticity and the wind velocity simulated by the Meteorological Mesoscale Model 5 (MM5), the back trajectory estimated by the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model, the total column amount of ozone and the aerosol index retrieved from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS), the total column density of CO retrieved from the Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT), and the concentration of ozone and CO simulated by the Model for Ozone and Related Chemical Tracers (MOZART). In particular, the total column density of CO, which mightoriginate from the combustion of fossil fuels and the burning of biomass in China, increased in East Asia during spring 2000. In addition, the enhancement of total column amounts of ozone and CO appeared to be associated with both the upper cut-off low near 500 hPa and the frontogenesis of a surface cyclone during a weak Asian dust event. At the same time, high concentrations of ozone and CO on the Earth's surface were shown at the Seoul air quality monitoring site, located at the surface frontogenesis in Korea. It was clear that the ozone was invaded by the downward stretched vortex anomalies, which included the ozone-rich airflow, during movement and development of the cut-off low, and then there was the catalytic photochemical reaction of ozone precursors on the Earth's surface during the day. In addition, air pollutants such as CO and aerosol were tracked along both the cyclone vortex and the strong westerly as shown at the back trajectory in Seoul and Busan, respectively. Consequently, the maxima of ozone and CO between the two areas showed up differently because of the time lag between those gases, including their catalytic photochemical reactions together with the invasion from the upper troposphere, as well as the path of their transport from China during the weak Asian dust event.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
• /
• v.9 no.6
• /
• pp.31-39
• /
• 2009

This study has found that there is a reverse phase with interdecadal variation in temporal variations of tropical cyclone (TC) genesis frequency (TCGF) between Northwest sector and Southeast sector, based on climatological mean tropical cyclone genesis location over the western North Pacific. The TCGF in the Northwest sector has been increased since the mid 1980s (1986-2005), while TCGF in the Southeast sector was higher until the early 1970s (1951-1970). The analysis of a difference between 1986-2005 and 1951-1970 showed results as follows: i) Through the analysis of vertical wind shear (VWS) and sea surface temperature (SST), less VWS and higher SST in the former (latter) period was located in the Northwest (Southeast) sector. ii) In the analysis of TC passage frequency (TCPF), TCs occurred in the Northwest sector frequently passed from east sea of the Philippines, through East China Sea, to Korea and Japan in the latter period, while TCs in the former period frequently has a lot of influences on South China Sea (SCS). In the case of TCs occurred in the Southeast sector, TCs in the west (east), based on $150^{\circ}E$ had a high passage frequency in the latter (former) period. In particular, TCs during the latter period frequently moved toward from the east sea of the Philippines to SCS and southern China. iii) This difference of TCPF between the two periods was characterized by 500 hPa anomalous pressure pattern. Particularly, anomalous cyclonic circulation strengthened over the East Asian continent caused anomalous southerlies along the East Asian coast line from the east sea of the Philippines to be predominate. These anomalous winds served as steering flows that TC can easily move toward same regions.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.51-69
• /
• 1993

Precipitable Water(PW) are retrieved over the tropical and subtropical Pacific Ocean from TOVS infrared and microwave channel brightness temperature and OLR observations by means of stepwise linear regression. The retrieved TOVS PW fields generated by PW$_{sfc}$(71.1 % of the variance and 0.62 g cm$^{-2}$ standard error over the surface) and PW$_{700500}$(71.7 % and 0.17 g cm$^{-2}$ over the 700 - 500 hPa layer) revealed more evolving synoptic signals over the tropical and subtropical Pacific Ocean. The PW$_{sfc}$ dose not show significantly the TP feature because of the representation of the lower PW for high-level clouds not associated with deep convection. There exists some elusion to trace the TP on the PW$_{sfc}$ field if any supplementary information does not provide. But ECMWF analysis has a general tendency of drying the subtropics and moistening the ITCZ (InterTropical Convergence Zone) and SPCZ(South Pacific Convergence Zone). However, although ECMWF analysis is fairly successful in capturing mean patterms, it is unsuccessful in following active synoptic signal like a tropical plume. Similarly, SMMR-PW does not represent the TP well which consists of the highand middle-level clouds, but PW$_{sfc}$ shows underestimated moistness of TP and does not depict significant signal of TP. In the PW field derived from microwave observations, the TP can not be recognized well. Furthermore, the signature of PW$_{sfc}$ was different from OLR for the TP, which implies the presence of high- and middle-layer thin clouds, but in a closer agreement for deep and active convection areas which contain thick middle- and lower-layer clouds; though OLR represented the cloudiness in the tropics well. In synoptically active regions, it differed from OLR analysis, primarily bacause of actual differences in water vapor and cloud features. The signature of PW$_{sfc}$ was different from OLR for the TP.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.266-280
• /
• 1994

Upper-air synoptic data and surface weather elements such as temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, cloud and precipitation were analyzed in some detail to determine the characteristics of Nopsae, a foehn-like surface wind over the Youngsuh region of Central Korea. NOAA AVHRR and GMS images are also referenced to identify the distribution of clouds and precipitation to classify the tpyes of foehn over the study area. The data period examined is from 1982 until 1993 of spring and summer months from March through August. Results of the anaylsis are as follows. Warm and dry air penetration over the Younesuh region has experienced on foehn days occured between March 21 and August 10 during study perion. The mean annual number of foehn the days were 28. Foehn phenomena were prominent during March 21-25, April 5-15, May 25-June 10, and June 26-30 pentads. The intensity of the phenomena can be evaluated as the difference of daily maximum temperature and relative humidity between windward sites and leeward sites. The intensity of daily maximum temperature reached 14.5$^{\circ}C$, but most values were in the range of 5.0-7.5$^{\circ}C$ (61%). Although strong intensity of foehns usually develop in June, it is common that farmers in the region experince more aridity during the foehnday of April and May due to the transplantation of rice seedlings. Long-run foehn are not common phenomena and 55% of foehn terminate in one day, but there is a record that Nopsae persisted up to 9 days continuously. The author identified using the cloud and precipitation data out of NOAA-11, AVHRR and GMS images is that one of them has no precipitation over windward side. The available data and the results of the analysis are somewhat inadequate. Since the results imply that wave phenomenon is potentially important in terms of local surface weather and vertical momentum transport, more detailed theoretical and observational studies are necessary to clarify the mechanism and the impacts of Nopsae.