• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.179-188
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• 2015

This study was carried out to determine the optimal number of ARGO floats in the East Sea in order to maximize their applications. The dominant spatio-temporal scale, size of the domain, and the typical float lifetimes in the East Sea were taken into consideration. The mean spatial de-correlation scale of temperature on isobaric surfaces reaches about 60 km. The minimum necessary number of floats is about 82 on average in order to secure independent ARGO profiles with the de-correlation scale. Considering the float lifetimes, about 27 floats per year should be deployed to maintain the 82 ARGO float array every year. To obtain spatially uniform distribution of ARGO float data, mean residence time and dispersion rate (basin area/residence time) of ARGO floats were evaluated in each basin of the East Sea. A faster (slower) dispersion rate requires more (less) ARGO floats to maintain the spatially uniform number of floats. According to the analysis, it is likely that the optimal ratio of the number of floats for each basin is 1:2:4 corresponding to Ulleung Basin:Yamato Basin:Japan Basin. In order to maintain relatively uniform ARGO observing networks, it is necessary to establish a long-term plan for deployment strategy based on float pathways and the dispersion rate parameters estimated by using currently active ARGO float trajectory data as well as reanalysis data.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.183-188
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• 2005

Using data from Argo floats collected in the Southern Ocean, we describe water mass prop erties and flow fields at intermediate levels (1000m and 2000m levels). Water mass properties from Argo floats, which are consistent with those from previous hydrographic surveys, reflect the movement of the floats well even without quality control on the Argo data. Since the flow fields from the Argo floats do not cover the entire Southern Ocean, we could not obtain a general circulation pattern, especially at the 2000m level. We, however, can confirm the general eastward tendency due to ACC largely following the topography.

• Atmosphere
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.283-294
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• 2021

An Observing System Experiment (OSE) using Global Ocean Data Assimilation and Prediction System (GODAPS) was conducted to evaluate the assimilation impact of Argo floats, deployed by National Institute of Meteorological Sciences/Korea Meteorological Administration (NIMS/KMA), in marginal seas around Korean peninsula. A data denial experiment was run by removing Argo floats in the Yellow Sea and the East Sea from an operational run. The assimilation results show that Argo floats bring the positive impact on the analysis of ocean internal structure in both Yellow Sea and East Sea. In the East Sea, overall positive impact in the water temperature and salinity context is found, especially outstanding improvement from 300 to 500 m depth. In the Yellow sea, the assimilation impact on water temperature and salinity is also large within 50 m depth, especially greater impact than the East Sea in salinity. However, in the Yellow Sea, the influence of Argo floats tends to be restricted to the vicinity of Argo floats, because there was only one Argo float in the middle of the Yellow Sea during the experiment period. Given that the only limited number of Argo floats generally contribute in a positive way to the improvement of the GODAPS, further progress could be expected with adding more observations from Argo floats to current observing systems.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.129-136
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• 2005

Continued observation of ARGO floats for years(about 4 years) makes the conductivity sensor more vulnerable to fouling by marine life and associated drift in salinity measurements. In this paper, we address this issue by making use of floats deployed in different years. Floats deployed in the East Sea and the Indian Ocean are examined to find out float-to-float match-ups in such a way that an older float pops up simultaneously with a newer deployment (with tolerable space-time difference). A time difference of less than five days and space difference of less than 100km are considered for the match-up data sets. For analysis of the salinity drift under the stable water mass, observations of the floats from deepest water masses have been used. From the cross-check of ARGO floats in the East Sea and the Indian Ocean, it is found that there is a systematic drift in the older float compared to later deployments. All drift results, consistently show negative bias indicating the typical nature of drift from fouled sensors. However, the drift is much less than 0.01, the specified accuracy of ARGO program.

• Atmosphere
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.4-23
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• 2004

To monitor the world's oceans and understand the role of the oceans for climate change, an Array for Real-time Geostrophic Oceanography (ARGO) program has been carried out since year 2000. Autonomous profiling floats of about 820 are reporting the vertical temperature, salinity, and pressure profiles of the upper 2000 m underwater at regular time intervals. Meteorological Research Institute (METRI) of Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) launched 45 floats at the East Sea and the western Pacific to understand characteristics of water properties and develop the global ocean observation system as a part of international cooperation project. In this study, we introduce ARGO program, METRI-ARGO and the features of APEX float itself and their data formats. We also describe the significant points to be considered for using ARGO data.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.204-211
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• 2004

Autonomous profiling CTD floats are a useful tool for observing the oceans. We, however, cannot perform post-deployment calibration of the CTD's attached to the floats, and the assessment of the accuracy and stability of the profile data from the floats is one of the important issues in the delayed mode quality control of the profiles. Variations in salinity in the intermediate level of East Sea is comparable to the accuracy of salinity data required by the international Argo Program, which is 0.01. Therefore, we can assess the credibility of salinity data from the floats deployed in the East Sea using three independent methods while considering the East Sea as a salinity calibration bath. The methods utilized here are 1) comparison of high quality CTD data and float data obtained at similar locations at similar time, 2) comparison of float data obtained at similar locations at similar time, and 3) investigation of long term stability and accuracy of salinity data from parking depths. All three methods show that without any calibration, the salinity data satisfy the accuracy criterion by the Argo Program. While assuming that the intermediate level temperature in the East Sea is as homogeneous as the salinity, we have applied the three methods to temperature data. We found that the accuracy of temperature reading is 0.01$^{\circ}C$, which is about twice larger than the requirement by the Argo Program, 0.005$^{\circ}C$. This does not mean that the temperature readings are inaccurate, because the intermediate level temperature does vary spacially and temporally more than the accuracy interval required by the Argo Program. If we take into account the variation in the intermediate level temperature, the accuracy of temperature data from the floats is not significantly different from that proposed by the Argo Program. Therefore, one could use both temperature and salinity profiles from the floats assessed in this study without calibration.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.22-29
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• 2004

An international project, known as Argo, for collecting data on temperature, salinity and velocity of currents in the world's oceans, has been started in the year 2000 and the full Argo array of approximately 3000 floats will be deployed by 2006. 18 countries deployed 1,023 floats, which are operating in the ocean of the world as of December 2003. In the present study, we tried to predict float distribution and a rate of drifting ashore of the floats after their termination based upon a product of the ocean general circulation model of JAMSTEC (Japan Marine Science and Technology Center). We first evaluated reliability of the model prodilct quantitatively by comparing trajectories of surface buoys of WOCE Surface Velocity Program (SVP) and those predicted by the model surface current field. It is found that the model is acceptable for practical application to deploy floats and to estimate those trajectories. 653 particles at 3-degree spacing are used to investigate the ratio of floats drifted ashore, given that during the first 4 years floats cycle between the surface and 2000m for 10 days and then floats are on just the surface for 100 years. The simulation indicates that about 29% of deployed floats will be drifted ashore within 100-year.

• Atmosphere
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.71-84
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• 2022

This paper describes verification results for the ocean analysis field produced by the Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean (NEMO) of the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) against observed Argo floats and drift buoys over the western Pacific Ocean and the equatorial Pacific during 2020~2021. This is confirmed by a comparison of the verification for the newly updated version of the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model/Navy Coupled Ocean Data Assimilation (HYCOM/NCODA) against same observations. NEMO shows that the vertical ocean temperature is much closer to the Argo floats than HYCOM for most seasons in terms of bias and root mean square error. On the other hand, there are overall considerable cold biases for HYCOM, which may be due to the more rapid decreasing temperature at the shallow thermocline in HYCOM. Conclusion demonstrated that the NEMO analysis for ocean temperature is more reliable than the analysis produced by the latest version of HYCOM as well as by the out-of-date HYCOM applied to the precedent study. The surface ocean current produced by NEMO also shows 14% closer to the AOML (Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory) in situ drift buoys observations than HYCOM over the western Pacific Ocean. Over the equatorial Pacific, however, HYCOM shows slightly closer to AOML observation than NEMO in some seasons. Overall, this study suggests that the resulting information may be used to promote more use of NEMO analysis.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.21-30
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• 2006

This study investigated the temperature-salinity spatio-temporal variability around the Ulleung-do Island (UI) by using CTD profiles obtained by the ARGO floats far the period of Oct.,2003 to Aug.,2005. The waterbody in the upper 700 m around the UI could be classified into five water masses, which is consistent to traditional water characteristics in the East Sea. In the upper surface layer, the temperature and salinity in fall season became even lower than those properties in the summer time. The East Sea Intermediate Water (ESIW) characterized by the salinity minimum layer shows the range of potential temperature between 1 to $5^{\circ}C$ and salinity lower than 34.06 psu. The ESIW lies approximately at 265 m depth with average thickness of 175 m. This thickness of the ESIW continues to be relatively uniform regardless of spatio-temporal space. However, the depth of the ESIW shows vertical variation influenced by the Ulleung warm eddy (UWE). Since the UWE lies in the upper layer, the Upper Portion of the Japan Sea Proper. Water (UPJSPW) is also affected to show the vertical variation. The influence extorted by the UWE reached down to 700 m depth in terms of temperature. The CTD profiles obtained with the high sampling rate by ARCO floats over two-year period provided with very useful and detailed informations in investigating the spatio-temporal variability In the study area.

• Atmosphere
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.561-570
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• 2023

In order to improve the predictability of marine high-impacts weather such as typhoon and high waves, the marine observation network is an essential because it could be rapidly changed by strong air-sea interaction. In this regard, the National Institute of Meteorological Sciences, Korea Meteorological Administration (NIMS/KMA) has promoted the Argo float observation program since 2001 to participate in the International Argo program. In this study, current status and future direction of the NIMS/KMA Argo program are presented through the internal meeting and external expert forum. To date, a total of 264 Argo floats have been deployed into the offshore around the Korean Peninsula and the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. The real-time and delayed modes quality control (QC) system of Argo data was developed, and an official regional data assembling center (call-sign 'KM') was run. In 2002, the Argo homepage was established for the systematic management and dissemination of Argo data for domestic and international users. The future goal of the NIMS/KMA Argo program is to improve response to the marine high-impacts weather through a marine environment monitoring and observing system. The promotion strategy for this is divided into four areas: strengthening policy communication, developing observation strategies, promoting utilization research, and activating international cooperation.