• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.294-298
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• 2008

Snow cover is a potential water resource for later spring and summer seasons as well as a thermal mirror with high reflectivity causing decreases of surface air temperature during cold winter seasons. In this study, current and future changes in Northern Hemisphere snow extent and their potential linkages with atmospheric circulation are examined. The NOAA AVHRR visible snow extent (1967-2006) data as well as observational (NCEP-DOE 1979-2006) and modeled (GFDL 2.1 2081-2100) pressure and surface air temperature data are used. Analyses of observational data demonstrate that the snow extent in meteorological spring (March to April) and summer (June to August) has significantly decreased since the late 1980s. The offset of snow seasons (the timing of snow melt in spring) have also significantly advanced particularly in Europe, East Asia, and northwestern North America. Analyses of pressure fields reveal that the spatial patterns of the earlier snow melt are associated with changes in atmospheric circulation such as the Arctic Oscillation (AO). In the positive winter AO years, multiple positive pressure departure cores in the upper troposphere (200hPa) are observed over the mid-latitude regions from March to mid-April, while a negative pressure departure core (70hPa) prevails over the Arctic Ocean. The reversed anomaly patterns related to later snow melt occur in negative winter AO years. The comparison between current and future thermal spring onsets suggest that snow melt patterns will intensify with larger greenhouse gas emissions, indicating earlier hydrological spring onset.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2008

This study intends to clarify the characteristics and causes of current changes in wintertime precipitation in Korea and to predict the future directions based on surface observational $(1973/04\sim2006/07)$ and modeled (GFDL 2.1) climate data. Analyses of surface observation data demonstrate that without changes in the total amount of precipitation, snowfall in winter (November-April) has reduced by 4.3cm/decade over the $1973\sim2007$ period. Moreover, the frequency and intensity of snowfall have decreased; the duration of snow season has shortened; and the snow-to-rain day ratio (STDR) has decreased. These patterns indicate that the type of wintertime precipitation has changed from snow to rain in recent decades. The snow-to-rain change in winter is associated with the increases of air temperature (AT) over South Korea. Analyses of synoptic charts reveal that the warming pattern is associated with the formation of a positive pressure anomaly core over northeast Asia by a hemispheric positive winter Arctic Oscillation (AO) mode. Moreover, the differentiated warming of AT versus sea surface temperature (SST) under the high pressure anomaly core reduces the air-sea temperature gradient, and subsequently it increases the atmospheric stability above oceans, which is associated with less formation of snow cloud. Comparisons of modeled data between torrent $(1981\sim2000)$ and future $(2081\sim2100)$ periods suggest that the intensified warming with larger anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission in the $21^{st}$ century will amplify the magnitude of these changes. More reduction of snow impossible days as well as more abbreviation of snow seasons is predicted in the $21^{st}$ century.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.302-312
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• 2006

This study has investigated the effect of Arctic Oscillation (AO) on cold surge through atmospheric circulation and heat source analysis for the past winters from 1979 to 2004. The number of occurrence of cold surge in the negative AO phase is about 14.3% larger than that in the positive AO phase. The number of occurrence of cold surge per a month in the negative (positive) AO phase is about 1.33 (1.05), respectively, indicating that the negative AO phase has about 26.6% larger occurrence than the positive AO phase. It means that the cold surge has occurred frequently in particular months with the negative AO phase. And it also shows that surface temperature in the negative AO phase is about $0.6^{\circ}C$ lower than in positive AO phase. As a result of the analysis for the difference of heat source according to the intensity of AO, it shows that surface air temperature around the Korean peninsula in the negative AO phase is more lower than in positive AO phase by the intensification of cold advection term. However, heat source term cancels out the cooling effect by cold advection term, indicating that it suppresses the decrease in surface air temperature. It results in a small difference of $0.6^{\circ}C$ in surface air temperature between the positive and negative AO phase in spite of the significance of atmospheric circulation change.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.423-434
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• 2009

The Arctic environment is sensitive to change of sea-ice distribution. The increase and decrease of sea ice work to an index of globe warming progress. In order to predict the progress of hereafter earth global warming, continuous monitoring regarding a change of the sea ice area in the Arctic should be performed. The remote sensing based on an artificial satellite is most effective on the North Pole. The sea ice observation using a passive microwave sensor has been continued from 1970's. The determination of sea ice extent and ice type is one of the great successes of the passive microwave imagers. In this paper, to investigate the seasonal and inter-annual variation of sea-ice distribution we used here the sea ice data from July 2002 to May 2009 around the Arctic within $60^{\circ}N$ for the AMSR-E 12.5km sea-ice concentration, a passive microwave sensor. From an early analysis of these data, the arctic sea-ice extent has been steadily decreasing at a rate of about 3.1%, accounting for about $2{\times}10^5\;km^2$, which was calculated for the sea-ice cover reaching its minimum extent at the end of each summer. It is also revealed that this trend corresponds to a decline in the multi-year ice that is affected mainly by summer sea surface and air temperature increases. The extent of younger and thinner (first-year) ice decreased to the 2007 minimum, but rapidly recovered in 2008 and 2009 due to the dramatic loss in 2007. Seasonal variations of the sea-ice extent show significant year-to-year variation in the seasons of January-March in the Barents and Labrador seas and August-October in the region from the East Siberian and Chukchi seas to the North Pole. The spatial distribution of multi-year ice (7-year old) indicates that the perennial ice fraction has rapidly shrunk recently out of the East Siberian, Laptev, and Kara seas to the high region of the Arctic within the last seven years and the Northeast Passage could become open year-round in near future.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.275-291
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• 2023

Global warming has made the polar regions more accessible, leading to increased demand for the construction of new resource-development plants in oil-rich permafrost regions. The selection of locations of resource-development plants in permafrost regions should consider the surface displacement resulting from thawing and freezing of the active layer of permafrost. However, few studies have considered surface displacement in the selection of optimal locations of resource-development plants in permafrost region. In this study, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis using a range of geospatial information variables was performed to select optimal locations for the construction of oil-sands development plants in the permafrost region of southern Athabasca, Alberta, Canada, including consideration of surface displacement. The surface displacement velocity was estimated by applying the Small BAseline Subset Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar technique to time-series Advanced Land Observing Satellite Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar images acquired from February 2007 to March 2011. ERA5 reanalysis data were used to generate geospatial data for air temperature, surface temperature, and soil temperature averaged for the period 2000~2010. Geospatial data for roads and railways provided by Statistics Canada and land cover maps distributed by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation were also used in the AHP analysis. The suitability of sites analyzed using land cover, surface displacement, and road accessibility as the three most important geospatial factors was validated using the locations of oil-sand plants built since 2010. The sensitivity of surface displacement to the determination of location suitability was found to be very high. We confirm that surface displacement should be considered in the selection of optimal locations for the construction of new resource-development plants in permafrost regions.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.599-616
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• 2020

Sea-surface temperature (SST) is one of the most important oceanic variables for understanding air-sea interactions, heat flux variations, and oceanic circulation in the global ocean. Extremely low SSTs from 0℃ down to -2℃ should be more important than other normal temperatures because of their notable roles in inducing and regulating global climate and environmental changes. To understand the temporal and spatial variability of such extremely low SSTs in the global ocean, the long-term SST climatology was calculated using the daily SST database of satellites observed for the period from 1982 to 2018. In addition, the locations of regions with extremely low surface temperatures of less than 0℃ and monthly variations of isothermal lines of 0℃ were investigated using World Ocean Atlas (WOA) climatology based on in-situ oceanic measurements. As a result, extremely low temperatures occupied considerable areas in polar regions such as the Arctic Ocean and Antarctic Ocean, and marginal seas at high latitudes. Six earth science textbooks were analyzed to investigate how these extremely low temperatures were visualized. In most textbooks, illustrations of SSTs began not from extremely low temperatures below 0℃ but from a relatively high temperature of 0℃ or higher, which prevented students from understanding of concepts and roles of the low SSTs. As data visualization is one of the key elements of data literacy, illustrations of the textbooks should be improved to ensure that SST data are adequately visualized in the textbooks. This study emphasized that oceanic literacy and data literacy could be cultivated and strengthened simultaneously through visualizations of oceanic big data by using satellite SST data and oceanic in-situ measurements.

• Atmosphere
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.435-447
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• 2015

This study explores the synoptic characteristics of cold days over South Korea and their relationship with large-scale climate variability. The cold day, which is different from cold surge, is defined when daily-mean surface air temperature, averaged over 11 KMA stations, is colder than 1-percentile temperature in each year by considering its long-term trend over 1960~2012. Such event is detected by quantile regression and the related synoptic patterns are identified in reanalysis data. Composite geopotential height anomalies at 500 hPa show that cold days are often preceded by positive anomalies in high latitudes and negative anomalies in midlatitudes on the west of Korea. While the formers are quasi-stationary and quasi-barotropic, and often qualified as blocking highs, the latters are associated with transient cyclones. At cold days, the north-south dipole in geopotential height anomalies becomes west-east dipole in the lower troposphere as high-latitude anticyclone expands equatorward to the Northern China and mid-latitude cyclone moves eastward and rapidly develops over the East Sea. The resulting northerlies cause cold days in Korea. By performing composite analyses of large-scale climate indices, it is further found that the occurrence of these cold days are preferable when the Arctic Oscillation is in its negative phase and/or East Asian monsoon circulation and Siberian high are anomalously strong.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.1-21
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• 2015

The present study aims to characterize the synoptic climatic patterns of winter extreme low temperature events occurred in different regions of Korea based on daily temperature data observed at 61 weather stations under the supervision of the Korea Meteorological Administation and NCEP/NCAR reanalysis I data for the recent 40 years (1973~2012) period. Analyses of daily maximum and minimum temperatures below 10th percentile thresholds show that high frequencies of winter extreme low temperature events appear across the entire regions of Korea or in either the western or eastern half region divided by major mountain ridges at the 2~7 dayintervals particularly in the first half of the winter period (before mid-January). Composite analyses of surface synoptic climatic data including sea level pressure and wind vector reveal that 13 regional types of winter extreme low temperature events in Korea are closely associated with the relative location and intensity of both the Siberian high pressure and the Aleutian low pressure systems as well as major mountain ridges. Investigations of mid-troposphere (500 hPa) synoptic climatic charts demonstrate that the blocking-like upper troposphere low pressure system advecting the cold air from the Arctic toward the Korean Peninsula may provide favorable synoptic conditions for the outbreaks of winter extreme low temperature events in Korea. These results indicate that the monitoring of synoptic scale climatic systems in East Asia including the Siberian high pressure system, the Aleutian low pressure system and upper level blocking system is critical to the improvement of the predictability of winter extreme low temperature events in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.501-511
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• 2015

This study suggests a method of alleviating global warming by the increase of the Earth surface albedo through Artificial Sea ice Increasing (ASI) over the Available Freezing Areas (AFA). The method is developed based on the fact that the large sea surface area in or near the Arctic and the Antarctic has no ice even though both water and air temperatures are below zero and the artificial sea ice generation is thus available. The mean energy of $0.85Wm^{-2}$, which was suspected of adding to the earth by the global warming effect was calculated to offset at once when the sea ice area about $4.09{\times}10^6km^2$ was additionally increased. In addition, three techniques for producing ice plates on the sea surface (using ships, installation apparatus, and floating matter such as Green Cell Foam) for ASI were proposed. According to the result of simple analysis using the energy balance model, when ASI was maximally operated only for 3 months (September, October, and November) over AFA, it is expected that the annual mean temperature of earth surface would be decreased about $0.11^{\circ}C$ in the following year. On the other hand, in case of generating the artificial sea ice in all four seasons, a risk of triggering snowball earth was detected.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2011

The Yellow Sea Cold Water (YSCW) is formed by cold and dry wind in the previous winter, and is known to spread southward along the central trough of the Yellow Sea in summer. Water characteristics of the YSCW and its movement in the northern East China Sea (ECS) are investigated by analyzing CTD (conductivity-Temperature-Depth) data collected from summertime hydrographic surveys between 2003 and 2009. By water mass analysis, we newly define the North Western Cold Water (NWCW) as a cold water mass observed in the study area. It is characterized by temperature below $13.2^{\circ}C$, salinity of 32.6~33.7 psu, and density (${\sigma}_t$) of 24.7~25.5. The NWCW appears to flow southward at about a speed less than 2 cm/s according to the geostrophic calculation. The newly defined NWCW shows an interannual variation in the range of temperature and occupied area, which is in close relation with the sea surface temperature (SST) over the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea in the previous winter season. The winter SST is determined by winter air temperature, which shows a high correlation with the winter-mean Arctic Oscillation (AO) index. The negative winter-mean AO causes the low winter SST over the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, resulting in the summertime expansion and lower temperature of the NWCW in the study area. This study shows a dynamic relation among the winter-mean AO index, SST, and NWCW, which helps to predict the movement of NWCW in the northern ECS in summer.